Year Built: 1899.
Architect: Marton & Moodie.
The McCulloch County Courthouse is located in the Texas Hill Country town of Brady. Brady’s nickname is the “Heart of Texas” due to its location near the geographic center of Texas.
Many are enamored with this courthouse and it is a favorite among the community of courthouse enthusiasts. I find it attractive but it is not among my personal favorites.
Here is a description of the courthouse architecture excerpted from the Texas Fort Trails Region website:
On September 29, 1899 the local Masonic Lodge laid the cornerstone and by May of 1900 the new courthouse was move-in ready. Designed in the Romanesque Revival style, the McCulloch County courthouse featured flanking turrets, rusticated native sandstone walls, a pressed metal clock tower (designed to hold clockworks but none were ever installed), and highly decorative arched windows and entryways. The builders oriented the courthouse to the cardinal points, creating an impressive face to those approaching from Brady’s main thoroughfares. The building could be entered from all four directions through pairs of wood and glass transom doors.
The interior spaces were designed to impress as well. The District Courtroom, with its ornamental metal ceiling rising two stories above the courtroom floor, was probably the largest interior space in the county. An early resident of Brady, Mrs. Houston L. Braly, recalls the new courthouse and surroundings in a 1967 interview for the local newspaper The Brady Herald.
“The walls of the wide halls on the first floor were lined with benches and seemed always to be filled with people resting and visiting,” Braly recalls. “With all doors open on four sides, it was always cool in the summer time. Coal oil lamps on the wall were always ready to light for a cool meeting place on a summer night or a warm one in the winter. In the early days there were lectures, piano recitals, and magic lantern shows. A huge green pine tree graced the halls at the Christmas season…The well and the windmill ensconced on the plaza were a great satisfaction to the businessmen of the town – no more water barrels outside the back door. Water troughs were now set up alongside the hitching racks around the outer edge of the courthouse lawn.”
Inscription on the Courthouse Marker:
County organized 1876, with Brady as county seat; first courthouse built 1879. Present courthouse (second and on same site) completed 1900; and Moodie, contractors, for “turn key” construction. Local labor and materials were used as far as practical. Native sandstone from local quarries. Modified Roman architecture employing arch vault. Victorian cupola; pine woodwork, flooring, at time of construction.
The nearby McCulloch County Centennial Marker reads:
Created Aug. 27, 1856. One of 128 counties formed from Bexar County that extended from the Rio Grande to the Panhandle, and as far west as El Paso. Named for Texas hero, Ben McCulloch, who fought in Texas Revolution, Indian, Mexican and Civil Wars.
Indian and frontier hazards made growth slow and 20 years passed before buffalo were hunted off and ranches established.
Organized Aug. 4, 1876 with Brady, county seat. Became ranch, farm, recreation center.
Geographical center of Texas. Site of 1831 Calf Creek battle, where James Bowie, Alamo hero, and party defeated 100 Indians.
