Harris County Civil Courts Building (Harris County Courthouse)

Harris County Civil Courts Building (Harris County Courthouse)

Harris County Civil Courts Building (Harris County Courthouse) Photograph by Gerald Moorhead
1910, Lang and Witchell. Courthouse Sq.

One of the Allen brothers' two public squares, Courthouse Square, has been occupied since 1837 by the county government of Harris County. The columned and domed Harris County Courthouse, designed by Dallas's most prolific early-twentieth-century architectural firm, is notable for its boldly scaled base of pink Texas granite, a material symbol of Texan identity quarried far west of the coastal plain. Surrounded by mature live oak trees, Courthouse Square retains an air of small-town civility foreign to the reflective glass towers of central Houston. Rehabilitation of the courthouse was completed in 2011 under the auspices of the Texas Historic Courthouse Preservation Program by PGAL Architects and ArchiTexas of Dallas.

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