Cooke County Courthouse Clock - Gainesville, Texas - Town Clocks on Waymarking.com

The Cooke County Courthouse of 1911 is a composition of Beaux Arts design — in its massing and exterior classical references — with Sullivanesque interior details in a modern interpretation of established courthouse design. It is a 3-story cruciform-plan building set on a raised basement and surmounted by a central domed tower. The courthouse is finished in limestone and beige brick with glazed terra cotta used for decorative elements. The building occupies an entire block in the middle of Gainesville, Cooke County. Cooke County borders Oklahoma in north central Texas, roughly 75 miles north of the Dallas/Fort Worth metropolitan area. Surrounding the building, within the four corners of the cruciform footprint, are planted areas of grass and pecan trees where memorial statuary has been placed. Facing the courthouse square are low-scale commercial buildings of the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

The tower rises from the middle of the courthouse roof about three stories on a square plan with chamfered corners . On each face is a large louvered vent recessed in the facade and flanked by Tuscan pilasters set in antis. The vents replace the original windows in the tower. Laurel swags decorate the upper corners of the tower just beneath the cornice molding. The dome atop the tower has a copper-clad roof with a decorative pinnacle. A parapet wall that surrounds the base of the dome rises on each elevation to enclose a clock face. Although the clock faces were part of the original design, the clock was not installed until 1920. The faces are highlighted by a geometric surround that echoes the prominent keystone and voussoirs of the 1st-floor windows.