Hill County Courthouse
Courthouse Sq., Hillsboro, TXHill County was created from part of Navarro County in 1853 and named for George Washington Hill. The citizens were authorized to vote for a site for the county seat which would be named "Hillsborough", and chose a centrally located site. The first courthouse of elm logs was built in 1854 and served until 1856. The second, more substantial, courthouse was a two-story brick building that burned down in 1872. In 1874 a third courthouse, again a two-story brick building, was built for $15,000 and served until the present structure was erected. ouse In 1889, when the present courthouse was planned, the location of the county seat was contested, but the final vote on November 6th gave Hillsboro 2611 votes to Woodbury's 1287. After the election, the contract for the present courthouse was let on December 19, 1889, to Lovell, Miller, and Hood of Brownsville for $83,000. The old courthouse was sold at auction on December 21 of that year for the sum of $120, and during the construction of the new building, county offices were mainly in the Ewell Hotel.
Records indicate that the contractors sustained a loss of $4,714.22 over the contract price. (Approximately 50% of the total cost of construction is related to the quarrying, transportation, carving, and placing of the limestone rocks that form the exterior face of the building.) County officials along with the citizens of Hill County donated more than enough to repay the contractor's loss.
The architect of the Hill County Courthouse was W. C. Dodson, listed as a Waco architect in the 1885 roster of Texas architects, Dodson also designed the Hood County Courthouse at Granbury in 1890, a courthouse that is almost identical to that of Parker County at Weatherford which was built in 1885 and was probably designed by Dodson. All three of the court- houses are of a Texas version of the French Second Empire style, all have identical central towers and are otherwise very closely related. The Hillsboro and Weatherford county court- houses are eye-catchers and photographs of them have been frequently included in nationally distributed articles and books on Texas or on Texas architecture.
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.