Bandera County Courthouse and Jail
Public Sq., 12th and Maple Sts., Bandera, TXThese three county buildings, varying in scale, design, and construction date but all built of local materials, are evidence of the boom-town growth of post-civil war Bandera (and Texas as a whole) which stopped in this town and then dwindled in the 20th century. This growth can be traced from the county's early use of temporary log structures to the purchase of the more permanent two-story 1869 vernacular structure overlooking the Medina River, to the subsequent sophistication of the adjacent one-story masonry jail designed by 1881, and finally, the elaborate though unusual local adaptation of Second Renaissance Revival style in the courthouse designed by B.F. Trester, Jr. in 1891. The three buildings have remained in continuous use in the community both in governmental and business functions and are important landmarks to the townspeople.
Bandera County, organized in 1856 in a ranching area, with its primary industry that of the manufacture of cypress shingles, used makeshift quarters for jail and courthouse functions until 1877, when the county purchased the two-story stone vernacular building over-looking the cypress mill which is now known as the old courthouse. Built for local entrepreneur and mill owner J.B. Davenport in 1869 by a builder named White, the building served as the county courthouse until the present courthouse was built in 1891. Since that time it has been leased by the county for various commercial enterprises and continues to use as office space.
The present courthouse was designed by a prolific San Antonio architect, B.F. Trester, Jr. In a two-year period, Trester also designed the Uvalde County Courthouse, a two-story stone school in Kerrville, Methodist Female Seminary, a two-story brick store in Beeville, and the Uvalde Opera House (N.R. 1978) before his death in March of 1891. Builders for the courthouse were Ed Braden and Sons, with Frankel and Hayden are shown as supervising architects. Apparently, a design for the courthouse was submitted b A one-story jail was built on the square behind the courthouse in 1938, and a one-story limestone office addition was built to the east in 1966 when the courthouse was remodeled and the windows were replaced. Even with these changes, the character and mass of the building are important to the scale of the tiny town.
The elaborate old one-story jail was designed by renowned Texas architect Alfred Giles. Giles is known for his work in northern Mexico and Texas after his emigration from England to San Antonio in the last half of the 19th century. Some of the buildings he designed include the old Gillespie County Courthouse (N.R. 1971), the Sullivan Stable and Carriage House in San Antonio (N.R. 1978), and the Schreiner Mansion in Kerrville (N.R. 1975).
Giles' design for the jail was identical to the Bexar County Jail he built in 1877, except that the scale is smaller. Giles himself acted as supervising architect, with James A. Courtney acting as contractor. P.J. Pauly and Brothers of St. Louis, Missouri, constructed the two saw- and file-proof cages, as they had for Bexar County, for $2,855. After the new jail was built in 1938, this building served as a World War II veterans meeting hall, and offices for the Soil Conservation Service, and is now a museum, leased from the county by the Bandera County Historical Commission.
Listed in National Register of Historic Places in 1979.
The National Register of Historic Places is the official list of the Nation’s historic places worthy of preservation. Authorized by the National Historic Preservation Act of 1966, the National Park Service’s National Register of Historic Places is part of a national program to coordinate and support public and private efforts to identify, evaluate, and protect America’s historic and archeological resources.