Wise County Courthouse Square

They call it the castle on the hill — the 1896 Wise County Courthouse, a pink-granite Romanesque pile that rises over Decatur's square and ranks among the finest in all of Texas. The square that wraps around it is one of the state's best preserved, and it carries the whole story of the county in a single short walk: the founder who talked the legislature into creating Wise County, the Confederate-era headquarters, the old stone prison built by convict labor, the bank that a cattle-and-oil dynasty ran, the newspaper, the pioneer church, and even a hedge of thorny bois d'arc planted to keep raiders out. This loop circles the courthouse and the blocks just off it, tracing founders and frontier defense and the families who built the town. Look up at that granite tower — and down at the details of the storefronts below.