The stone-and-brick heart of every Texas county.
Two story hip-roofed sandstone building. A unique feature of the building is the use of small square windows a type of 'loophole' window on the second floor of three facades. Revealing the thickness of the walls, the small windows have a small interior opening which flares out to form a larger exterior opening. Other significant features include a molded stone cornice, a hipped roof and segmental arches capping the first-floor openings.
Taylor County Courthouse Museum (1880) is a courthouse in Buffalo Gap, Taylor County, dedicated in 1880. It is one of 2 courthouses documented in Taylor County in the Texas Historical Commission Atlas, among 129 historic sites cataloged across the county.
The site sits at 32.2860, -99.8275 near Buffalo Gap. The nearest cataloged historic site is Old Taylor County Courthouse and Jail (historic place), about under a tenth of a mile away. Others within a short drive include Buffalo Gap Historic Village, Buffalo Gap College, and Buffalo Gap.
This record corresponds to Texas Historical Commission Atlas #4302000010. Use the map below for its exact position and turn-by-turn directions.
The original Taylor County Courthouse in Buffalo Gap was completed in 1880 at a cost of about $8,000 and served as the county's courthouse for only three years, until the county seat moved to Abilene in 1883. A native-limestone jail built in 1879 stands beside it; its sandstone blocks were mortared together with cannonballs to keep prisoners from chiseling their way out. In 1956 local resident Ernie Wilson bought the old courthouse and founded what grew into the Buffalo Gap Historic Village (now the Taylor County History Center), which surrounds the building with historic structures and artifacts of the West Texas frontier.
Sources: buffalogaphistoricvillage.orgtshaonline.orgtexasescapes.com
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