136 of 254 Navarro County Courthouse, Corsicana, Texas.  County Population:  47,735

Navarro County, Texas

"In the spring of 1839 more families moved in and settled around the trading post. Two growing settlements were Porter's Bluff and Dresden. All of the legal work for the two sites was conducted at Franklin, the county seat of Robertson County, 125 miles south of Hill's Trading Post. In the spring of 1846 a group led by Edward H. Tarrant, a Texas Ranger, met at the home of Thomas I. Smith. The men at the meeting drew up a petition for a new county to be made out of Robertson County, ... a local lawyer, presented the petition to the state legislature in Austin, and it was approved on April 25, 1846. The new county included all the portion of Robertson County within the east bank of the Brazos River to the northwest corner of Limestone County. It also extended to the Trinity River and north to Dallas County. It was named Navarro County in honor of José Antonio Navarro, a Texas patriot.
"On February 8, 1848, a committee headed by Tarrant voted to set up a permanent county seat at the halfway point between Porter's Bluff and Dresden.  José Antonio Navarro chose the name Corsicana in honor of the Isle of Corsica, his father's birthplace.
"Over the next twenty years the original Navarro County was divided into the following counties: Limestone in 1846, Ellis in 1847, Tarrant in 1847, part of McLennan in 1850, Hill in 1853, Johnson in 1854, Parker in 1855, Palo Pinto in 1856, and Hood in 1866."
Julie G. Miller, "NAVARRO COUNTY," Handbook of Texas Online 

I visited Navarro County and photographed the courthouse in Corsicana on Saturday, April 28, 2012 and September 23, 2017. 

Interstate 45 bisects Navarro County north-south.

The courthouse is visible on the Corsicana skyline, beyond the downtown area.

Navarro County Courthouse 1905

James Edward Flanders, Architect. Image courtesy courthousehistory.com

Photo, circa1939, courtesy TXDOT. The trees already obscure the building

"At the turn of the century, Corsicana was in the middle of an oil boom. This provided the money and the impetus to replace their deteriorating 1881 courthouse. This building, designed by architect E. F. Russini, was too small for the needs of the county and it had also fallen victim to the shifting Corsicana soil.  James Edward Flanders was retained in 1904 to design the new courthouse which was to be much larger than any of his previous "temples of justice" and the county was prepared to pay in excess of $125,000 for the building. Flanders designed an imposing Beaux Arts structure and the contract was awarded to General Supply and Construction Company of Fort Worth who submitted the low bid of $128,900."  Jim Willis (site of a Flanders biography)

The courthouse occupies the center of the courthouse square, a few blocks west and north of downtown Corsicana.

2012: the view from W 3rd Ave of the courthouse front. The trees completely obscure the building. Since then, many of the trees have been removed. Good work.

The Navarro County courthouse was restored and rededicated on July 9, 2016.

A statue of Jose Antonio Navarro in front of the courthouse.

A view from the front of the courthouse of W. 3rd Avenue. There is little development of significance around the square.

The southwest corner of the courthouse.

The northwest corner of the courthouse. Diagonal entrances occur on this and the northeast corners of the building.

The "back" of the courthouse faces W. 2nd Avenue and the county justice center.

The northeast corner of the courthouse.

The newer Navarro County Justice Center is on W 2nd Ave, directly across from the historic courthouse

The US Post Office in downtown Corsicana. I visited during Derrick Days, a celebration of the area's oil industry. Oil was discovered in the county in 1894