177 of 254 Culberson County Courthouse, Van Horn, Texas. County Population: 2,398
Culberson County, Texas
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"Culberson County comprises 3,815 square miles of terrain that varies from
mountainous to nearly level, with elevations ranging from 8,751 feet on Guadalupe Peak, the highest spot in the state, to 3,000 feet. "In 1849, the Van Horn Wells were supposedly discovered by Maj. Jefferson Van Horne, en route to El Paso. The wells became known as one of the few dependable water sources in the vast emptiness of West Texas; ten years later the army considered them sufficiently important to establish a cavalry outpost there under Lt. James Judson Van Horn (no relation to Jefferson). Lieutenant Van Horn commanded the station until 1861, when he was taken prisoner by Confederate troops who seized the wells. The town of Van Horn, founded some twenty years later, was named for him. "In November 1881 Gould and Huntington reached an agreement by which the Texas and Pacific would stop at Sierra Blanca, in Hudspeth County, and the [railroads] would share the track from Sierra Blanca to El Paso. With the completion of the Texas and Pacific, settlement of the area began in earnest. "In 1911 a new county, named after David B. Culberson, was separated from El Paso County. When Culberson County was organized in 1912, Van Horn was chosen as county seat. Martin Donell Kohout, "CULBERSON COUNTY," Handbook of Texas Online I visited Culberson County and photographed the courthouse in Van Horn on March 22 and 24, 2013.
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The Guadalupe Mountains, Culberson County, Texas. Photographed from a Southwest Airlines flight.
Van Horn has an airport
Culberson County Courthouse 1912
E.E. Churchill, architect. Image courtesy courthousehistory.com
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Photograph, circa 1939, courtesy TXDOT
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Demolished in 1967. Image courtesy Portal to Texas History
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Image courtesy courthousehistory.com
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Culberson County Courthouse 1964 (remodeled 2001) Pierce, Norris, Pace & Associates
Easily one of the most unassuming courthouses in Texas
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The courthouse faces west, on La Caverna Street, Highway 54
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The view from the courthouse entrance
The "lobby" of the Culberson County courthouse
District courtroom
View of the front from the south
The north façade of the courthouse
The courthouse, viewed from the northwest
And, from the southwest
The east side of the courthouse. I particularly like the door on the upper level of the gable!
The historic Hotel El Capitan
One of the hotels designed by El Paso's Trost & Trost architects
You can't make this stuff up...
On US 90, south of Van Horn
View from the north: Culberson County and Van Horn. From 35,000 feet on July 11, 2014