Ellis County Courthouse Texas Sesquicentennial Time Capsule - Waxahachie, TX
N 32° 23.119 W 096° 50.884
14S E 702427 N 3585182
A time capsule is near the base of the Richard Ellis monument on the grounds of the historic Ellis County Courthouse, 101 West Main St, Waxahachie, TX.
Waymark Code: WMMBY0
Location: Texas, United States
Date Posted: 08/28/2014
Views: 5
The following text is inside something probably intended to resemble a time capsule, but it looks more like a muffin!
Chamber
of
Commerce
Time Capsule
Waxahachie - Ellis County - Texas
"Fifty" and "Years" are in each upper corner, and "1986" and "1936" flank the "capsule." This one will be opened when Texas turns 200 years old in 2036.
A Texas Historical Marker here -- the second -- provides some background:
Ellis County's first courthouse was made of cedar logs and built here in 1850. A second courthouse was built on this square in 1853 and a third in 1874. In 1894 Virginia native and San Antonio architect James Riely Gordon was commissioned to design the fourth Ellis County courthouse to be built at this site.
The cornerstone was laid on July 4, 1895, and the courthouse completed in 1897 with each of its main entrances purposely oriented toward true North, South, East and West compass points. Faces which adorn the courthouse were sculpted by European stonemasons.
The "Richardsonian Romanesque" architectural style used by Gordon to design this building was created by Bostonian Henry Hobson Richardson in the 1870s and popularized in Texas by Gordon. For this structure Gordon deviated from previous Texas courthouses he had designed in the "Richardsonian Romanesque" style by displaying open, two-story arcaded and colonnaded porticos on the exterior of the building and placing entrances at inside angles. Red and gray granite from Central Texas and red sandstone from the Pecos River in West Texas were used to build this courthouse. Gordon's Ellis County courthouse design set a new standard for other public buildings erected in Texas.