This was our twenty-first Courthouse in Texas to visit. That means we are at 8.3% of our goal with 91.7% left to go. This is the courthouse we were at when out of the blue a woman passed by and yelled, “That is the most beautiful car I have ever seen.”

The Texas legislature created Wood County in 1850 with Quitman as the county seat. The county first used a log courthouse on the south side of the square before building a two-story frame structure, which burned in 1878. The county’s third courthouse, designed by the noted F.E. Ruffini, was completed in 1884. It burned in 1924, and the county hired C.H. Leinbach of Dallas to design a new courthouse; Rice Construction Co. served as general contractor. The county added an annex in 1950, but the courthouse retains its Classical Revival style, with features including a grand stair with raised entry, a four-column temple front, and a full entablature with dentil molding and pediment. An addition was built in 1949, and the courthouse has undergone several remodeling processes since.