098 Karnes County

098 of 254: Karnes County Courthouse, Karnes City, Texas. County Population: 14,824

Karnes County, Texas

I visited Karnes County and photographed the courthouse in Karnes City on Wednesday, April 13, 2011. I stopped by again on June 5, 2017.

"The first Anglo-American settlement in the county was made in 1852 at Helena at the site of an earlier Mexican settlement called Alamita. Located on a bend of the San Antonio River at the intersection of the Chihuahua Trail and the wagon road from Gonzales to San Patricio, the town quickly developed as the focal point of Anglo settlement in the region.
"By 1853 Anglo settlers, ... , petitioned the state legislature to form a new county from portions of Bexar, Gonzales, DeWitt, Goliad, and San Patricio counties. On February 4, 1854, the legislature complied, passing a measure to establish a new county, named Karnes for Texas revolutionary leader Henry Wax Karnes, with Helena as county seat.
"Large-scale agriculture was not introduced until the arrival of the railroads in the mid-1880s.
"The arrival of the railroads also changed the face of the county in other ways. After the San Antonio and Aransas Pass Railway, which built through the area in 1886, missed Helena, the county seat was moved in 1894 six miles west to a new railroad town named Karnes City."
Christopher Long, "KARNES COUNTY," Handbook of Texas Online

The Round VIII Texas Historic Courthouse Preservation Program grant recipients were announced on April 30, 2014 by the Texas Historical Commission at its quarterly meeting. Karnes County: $450,000 grant award for removal of the remaining tile roof and replacement with a new slate roof and reinforced structural roof framing. The building is currently unoccupied due to structural problems, as well as roof-related bat infestation and mold.
The courthouse restoration was completed in 2018.

The white dots are oil/gas sites. There's a lot of shale oil activity in Karnes County.

Karnes County Courthouse 1894

Image courtesy courthousehistory.com

The building's Architect and Contractor, John Cormack, died before the construction was complete. An addition, by Henry Phelps, came in 1927, along with the removal of the clock tower and mansard roofs.

The Texas Historic Courthouse Preservation Program Round IX Grant Recipients (July 22, 2016): Karnes County--$3,878,108 full restoration grant award to complete the final phase of a multi-phase restoration project of their historic 1894 courthouse. Work will include returning the courtroom to its original double-height configuration, restoration of the main corridors and offices, restoration of the north, east and south facades, and reconstruction of the clock tower. The work will also include handicapped accessibility modifications, installation of new mechanical, electrical, communications, fire suppression and alarm systems. The county has prepared construction documents for the full restoration and is ready to start the project immediately upon award. That's EXCELLENT NEWS!!! Fisher Heck Architects of San Antonio designed the restoration.

The new towers are visible from the highway.

Photograph of the altered courthouse, circa 1939, courtesy TXDOT.

The south facade, circa 1927 to the present.

View looking east from the courthouse steps.

The courthouse addition suffered form cracking and spalling stucco where it adjoined the original building.

The courthouse restoration included the demolition of the western addition, circa 1927.

Yet another example of the dramatic makeovers made possible by the Texas Historic Courthouse Preservation program.

I'm looking forward to the "new" historic Karnes County courthouse!

Fisher Heck Architects, San Antonio TX

Karnes County Courthouse 2018 (1894)

I visited Karnes City on September 26, 2018 and photographed the new restored courthouse. It's an excellent restoration and worth a visit.