This was our 230th Courthouse in Texas to visit. That means we are at 90.6% of our goal with 9.4% left to go.

Donley County is named for Stockton P. Donley, skilled criminal lawyer and elected Texas Supreme Court Judge. He didn’t live in the Panhandle, but he’s said to have been as clever an attorney as Patrick “give me liberty, or give me death” Henry. Donley County, created in 1876, was also cattle country, with the JA Ranch (established that year by Goodnight and John Adair), the RO Ranch, and Carhart’s Quarter Circle Heart Ranch covering most of the area.

Stained glass windows in arched openings still remain as hints of its Victorian era roots. Columns with alternating courses of smooth and textured stones support the arches of the tower base. The building itself is very imposing, situated next to the modern courthouse annex that doesn’t match it at all. A ranch house would be more fitting out in these parts, but since Clarendon was dubbed “the Athens of the Panhandle,” having a fancy Romanesque courthouse would make some sense. (Wait. Wouldn’t a Greek Revival courthouse make even more sense?)

One of the most famous cases to be tried here was in November 1909 when G.R. Miller was sentenced to die for murdering two young men. He was hanged from the brand new scaffold several blocks from the courthouse in what was to be the last legal hanging in the Panhandle. I guess you can say that they built the scaffold especially for him.

The courthouse is undergoing renovation, courtesy of the Texas Historic Courthouse Preservation Program. The word from the current judge’s office is that the courthouse will look like it did when it was first built, if not better. Completion date is set for November 2002.