The history of the Tarrant County courthouse has many twists and turns (and rebuilds).

Courthouses enable and record many aspects of our lives. They are the county’s center of government, housed in buildings that convey a sense of majesty, authority and permanence. Tarrant County, established on Dec. 20, 1849, has had at least three or four permanent courthouses – depending on how you count – and a number of temporary ones.

Birdville, or present-day Haltom City, was the first county seat. There are no photographs of the first courthouse, although it was a simple wooden structure. In early 1856, about the time that bids were solicited for a permanent two-story brick courthouse in Birdville, an effort was underway to move the county seat to Fort Worth. Birdville pushed ahead, laying the foundation and contracting with W. S. Suggs to “burn the brick,” but never finished the building.

Fort Worth barely won the 1856 county seat election, but the controversy was hashed out in the courts during the late 1850s before being decided in Fort Worth’s favor in 1860. County operations moved to a temporary courthouse in Fort Worth. In March 1860, a Houston newspaper reported that Fort Worth had a “good and commodious courthouse” under construction. The Civil War and economic conditions intervened, and the courthouse was not finished until September of 1869. It was a simple, roughly square, two-story stone building with a small cupola.

On March 23, 1876, the Fort Worth Democrat reported that an audit assessing county operations recommended the building of a fireproof vault to protect county records. Less than a week later, on March 29, the courthouse burned, reducing most of the records to ashes. The county operated out of a temporary wooden building while a new courthouse was designed and constructed.

The new octagonal, two-story courthouse had four wings with a curved tin dome and cupola. The main courtroom occupied the central section of the second floor and had tall windows providing light, while the wings and first floor held offices.

J. H. Ryan provided the initial design while Thomas & Werner served as contractors, with Daniel O’Flaherty as the supervising architect. All four men called themselves architects, foreshadowing trouble. The courthouse was occupied, though not yet completed, by September of 1877.

Although handsome, the building turned out to be a total mess. It leaked, and much of the construction work was shoddy. A Dallas newspaper sarcastically suggested that the building might serve as a courthouse if completely rebuilt. By March of 1881 James J. Kane, Fort Worth’s first resident architect, was hired to design a replacement for the leaky roof.

In August 1881, the old dome was taken off and by early 1882 had been replaced by a “handsome mansard story” that provided additional “attic” rooms. The new bell tower featured four clocks, each 8-feet in diameter.

Eventually Tarrant County outgrew this building, and in 1893 the county commissioners sold bonds to construct a new courthouse. That building, designed by Kansas City architects Gunn and Curtiss and built in 1894-95, is the courthouse we know and love today – restored and standing proud on the bluff overlooking the Trinity River.

Carol Roark is an archivist, historian, and author with a special interest in architectural and photographic history who has written several books on Fort Worth history.