Karnes County Courthouse

The Karnes County Courthouse is the third building to serve as the seat of the Karnes County government. During the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, county seats often were relocated to accommodate the political and economic forces that were re-shaping rural Texas; this courthouse was constructed after the county seat was moved in 1894 from Helena to Karnes City, a distance of about seven miles. Designed and constructed in 1895 by John Cormack, the building was enlarged and remodeled in 1924 by architect Henry T. Phelps. The courthouse has served as the legal and administrative center of Karnes County throughout the area's shift from a ranch-based economy to an agricultural-based economy at the turn of the twentieth century. The courthouse continues to serve as the center of Karnes County government in the early twenty-first century and is therefore nominated to the National Register of Historic Places at the local level of significance under Criterion A in the area of Politics/Government.

Karnes County, Texas

Karnes County is located in central Texas, approximately fifty-two miles to the southeast of the city of San Antonio, in Bexar County. It is bounded on the north by Wilson County, on the east by Gonzales and DeWitt Counties, on the south by Goliad and Bee counties, and on the west by Live Oak and Atascosa counties. The terrain ranges from flat to rolling and hilly, and it consists of grassland and brush interspersed with mesquites, oaks, pecans, and cacti. The land is used largely for farming and stock raising. The primary waterways are the San Antonio River, which flows through the central part of the county from northwest to southeast, and the Cibolo Creek, which joins the river near the town of Panna Maria to the north of Karnes City.

The Texas legislature established Karnes County in 1854 from portions of Bexar, Gonzales, DeWitt, Goliad, and San Patricio counties. The new county was named for Henry Wax Karnes, a leader in the Texas Revolution and a Texas Ranger. The area had long been occupied, however; in the mid-eighteenth century, the Spanish government granted land to several families for settlement, most notably to the Hernandez and Manchaca families, who established ranches between the San Antonio River and Cibolo Creek. Indigenous peoples-including Comanches, Tonkawas, Karankawas, Lipan Apaches, Pataguillas, and Pitaias-had been living in the region for many centuries before the arrival of the Spanish, and the defenses of their homelands effectively discouraged most newcomers' permanent settlement in the area until the early nineteenth century.

Anglo residents first came to the region in the 1840s, and the town of Helena was established in 1852 on the site of an earlier town called Alamita. Helena was strategically located on the San Antonio River, where the Chihuahua Trail intersected with the road from Gonzales to San Patricio. As shipping and immigration increased, wagon traffic to the Gulf Coast assumed greater importance, and Helena became a key stopping point. When settlers petitioned the legislature in 1853 to establish a new county, Helena became the first county seat.