De Witt County Courthouse
Bounded by N. Gonzales, E. Live Oak, N. Clinton, and E. Courthouse Sts., Cuero, TXThe DeWitt County Courthouse is a late nineteenth-century Texas building strongly influenced by H. H. Richardson's Allegheny County Courthouse (1884-88) in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. The county is in south central Texas and was created in 1846 out of parts of Gonzales, Goliad, and Victoria counties. The area approximated that of the original 1825 Mexican grant to Empresario Green DeWitt.
The courthouse is located at Cuero, the present county seat of DeWitt County. Cuero, named for nearby Cuero Creek, had been originally projected as a town in 1842, but its establishment was unsuccessful at that time. "Cuero" is the Spanish translation of the Indian word for "hides". Cuero was finally established by John C. French and Gustav Schleicher, who laid off a town in January 1873, to serve as the terminus of the Gulf, Western, and Pacific Railroad. Thirty years of bitter feuding between towns had passed before Cuero was chosen as the county seat in 1876. Between 1846 and 1876 the county records were moved at least four times. Three expectant towns built courthouses of varying permanency. Clinton held the county seat from 1840 until 1876 when the final move was made to Cuero. The Commissioners paid $1,100 to move and repair the former frame Clinton courthouse to the site of the present courthouse in Cuero.
This building burned on April 8, 1894, and the D. W. Nash School was rented for temporary quarters. Bonds for $70,000 were issued and a contract was awarded to A. 0. Watson of Austin to design and construct a new building and include furniture for offices and courtrooms. The building was completed by builder Eugene Heiner of Houston in 1896.
The city of Cuero was on an immigrant route. Germans constituted the majority of the population by 1860. In 1940 75% of the white population was of German extraction. Recorded Texas Historic Landmark - 1966.
Bibliography
Webb, Walter P., ed. Handbook of Texas. Austin, 1952
Coursey, Clark. Courthouses of Texas. Waco, 1954.
Texas State Historical Survey Committee - Marker Files.
Listed in National Register of Historic Places in 1971.
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.