033 of 254: Chambers County Courthouse, Anahuac, Texas. County Population: 35,096, plus gators
"Chambers County, named for Thomas Jefferson Chambers, is a rural county less than twenty miles east of Houston in the Coastal Prairie region of Southeast Texas. The county is divided by the Trinity River. It comprises 616 square miles of level terrain that slopes toward Galveston Bay and the Gulf of Mexico, its southern and southwestern boundaries. The elevation rises from sea level to fifty feet. The county's abundant coastal marshland has never supported a large population, but its watery lowlands support the rice culture that yields the county's principal crop.
"Chambers County was formed in 1858 from Liberty and Jefferson counties, and organized the same year with Wallisville as its county seat. In 1906 Wallisville adopted a stock law to prevent pigs from running loose. Anahuac had become a boomtown. In 1908 Anahuac supporters filed suit and, in spite of Wallisville's genteel swine law, succeeded in making their town the county seat. Efforts to dissolve the county itself were made in 1915, 1923, and 1925 as conflicts developed over stock laws, prohibition, and the county seat question; these were complicated by offers of lower taxes from Harris and Liberty counties, whose officials hoped to cash in on Chambers County oilfields.
Diana J. Kleiner, "CHAMBERS COUNTY," Handbook of Texas Online
"Chambers County was formed in 1858 from Liberty and Jefferson counties, and organized the same year with Wallisville as its county seat. In 1906 Wallisville adopted a stock law to prevent pigs from running loose. Anahuac had become a boomtown. In 1908 Anahuac supporters filed suit and, in spite of Wallisville's genteel swine law, succeeded in making their town the county seat. Efforts to dissolve the county itself were made in 1915, 1923, and 1925 as conflicts developed over stock laws, prohibition, and the county seat question; these were complicated by offers of lower taxes from Harris and Liberty counties, whose officials hoped to cash in on Chambers County oilfields.
Diana J. Kleiner, "CHAMBERS COUNTY," Handbook of Texas Online
Chambers County, Texas
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Chambers County has a subtropical, humid climate, with rainfall averaging
forty-nine inches, a mean annual temperature of sixty-nine degrees, and a growing season averaging 261 days per year. The county includes the mouth of the Trinity River and portions of Trinity and Galveston Bays. My initial visit to Chambers County was on December 30, 2009. I returned on a better day for photography: October 30, 2011. |
Chambers County Courthouse 1887
The first county seat was in Wallsville. I believe the photograph is of the 1887 courthouse, designed by August Baumbach.
AKA "the alligator capital of Texas"
Chambers County Courthouse 1911 |
Lake Anahuac
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Designed by F.W. Steinmar, burned 1935. Image courtesy of courthousehistory.com
Chambers County Courthouse 1936
Image courtesy of courthousehistory.com
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Photo, circa 1939, courtesy of TXDOT
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The front of the courthouse faces east.
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Corneil G. Curtis was the architect for the Chambers County courthouse and two other Texas courthouses, all in the Moderne Federal style.
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Anahuac is a small town. This is the view from the front of the courthouse, looking east.
And, on the west side of the courthouse, this is the view.
The courthouse viewed from the southwest.
Chambersea: the 1845 home of Thomas Jefferson Chambers, for whom the county was named. It's located near the courthouse.
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A plantation house in Wallisville,near Anahuac.
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