If you’ve been following us for a while, you know we love a good county courthouse. Since we’re here for the next few months, we figured we should check out the Bastrop county courthouse and surrounding buildings.
The county courthouse building
There’s a lot more information here, but the Bastrop County Courthouse is a three-story, stuccoed brick, Neo-classical Revival structure with a copper-domed clock tower in the center of a flat roof. Designed by J. W. Preston and Sons and reviewed by F. E. Ruffini, the courthouse was built in 1883-1884 and utilized the traditional cross-corridor plan of Victorian courthouse design.
The old Bastrop county jail
The three-story tan and red brick old Bastrop County Jail, opened in 1892, also stands on the courthouse square. This building was placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1975, and recorded as a Texas Historic Landmark in 1977.
The interesting part about walking around the historic courthouse and jail grounds is that it is in the middle of a neighborhood with homes and churches. We thought we had gotten there early enough to avoid the crowds, but we ended up seeing a steady stream of parishioners headed to the Catholic church across the street.
Since we’ll be around for a while, we’ll likely go back when the trees are blooming to get more angles and photos.
