1935 - Loving County Courthouse - Mentone, TX - Dated Buildings and Cornerstones on Waymarking.com

"The 1935 Loving County Courthouse is a Moderne Style two-story brown brick and tile building in Mentone, Texas (pop. 16). The building is set in the middle of a sparsely landscaped block bounded by Pecos Street, Collins Street, Dallas Street and State Highway 302. The building is nearly devoid of ornament, and serves as a stark example of a Depression-era governmental building, whose simple design is likely due to both the influence of modernist design principles as well as a desire to keep costs low. Despite the replacement of all windows and introduction of new interior wall finishes in the late 1970s, the building retains a good degree of integrity.

[...] The building sits on a four-inch concrete slab foundation. Despite the lack of ornament, variations in materials, along with subtle setbacks and corbelling prevent the building from reading as a plain brick box. The ground floor exterior is finished with light brown brick that extends above the second story’s floor line, and the upper floor is finished with a lighter brown rough-texture face tile. The base of each floor is stepped back over five brick courses, and this slight setback, along with the change in facing materials distinguishes the upper floor and makes it appear shorter than the first floor. The building is topped by a corbelled brick stringcourse, a tile parapet, and a concrete coping.

Each façade of the courthouse is symmetrical, and nearly identical, with variations only in the treatment of window and door openings. Each elevation has five bays, with the outer (first and fifth) bays on each floor featuring paired windows, and each second and fourth bay featuring a single window. Accessed by a short flight of concrete steps between low concrete and brick abutments, each doorway occupies the lower central bay, while its corresponding bay on the upper floor has paired windows. Each doorway is framed by buff brick, distinctly lighter than the surrounding tan brick, with a cast stone lintel with clipped upper corners. The lintels read: “Loving County Court-House 1935.” The original wood panel double doors and multiple light transoms have all been replaced with metal double doors topped with single-pane transom windows. A 1977-78 remodeling program replaced all the original metal tilting sash windows with dark brown single-hung sash windows with reflective glazing. The fixed upper sash on each window is taller than the single-light lower sash, and is divided by a vertical muntin.

The southeast façade reads as the primary elevation only due to the placement of a 1935 dedication plaque to the left of the doorway. All of this elevation’s original window openings are intact. The doorway of the southwest elevation serves as the entrance to the county sheriff’s office. The window in the fourth bay of the ground floor has been bricked in. The single windows in the first and second bays of the second floor (historically housing the jail) are covered by metal vents. The northwest elevation is generally considered to be the rear of the building because the original doorway has been bricked in due to placement of an elevator, and this side of the building serves as the location of HVAC equipment, a detached diesel generator shed, electrical boxes and conduit, a radio tower and a utility pole. The window opening in the fourth bay on the ground floor and the central bay on the upper floor have been bricked in. The fifth bay on the upper floor has a metal vent similar to those on the southwest elevation. The northeast façade is distinguished by a concrete accessibility ramp with a steel railing attached at the entrance.

The building originally featured a square cross-axial plan on the ground floor, modified in the 1970s with the addition of an elevator and the extension of the sheriff’s office. The southeast and northeast hallways retain their original ten-foot widths, but the northeast hall is entered through a glass and metal doorway, and functions as an extension of the county treasurer’s office, with tables and filing cabinets lining both sides. Restrooms have been added to the left side of the northwest hallway, reducing its footprint by roughly half. This hall leads to the elevator, which blocks access to the original northwest entrance. A steep flight of stairs leading to the second floor are to the left of the northwest hall. The southwest hall has been narrowed by half with the addition of closets on the left side, and truncated by the extension of the sheriff’s office at the original southwest entrance. All office walls are covered with flat hardwood paneling, while public hallways are finished with white marble. The original wood ceiling molding with dentils is intact, but the ceiling is finished with acoustical tiles.

The upper floor features an asymmetrical plan designed to house the courtroom, two consultation rooms, a jury room, and a two-cell jail accessed by a steel door. The jail cells (west corner) have been removed, and this section of the building now serves as a storage room. The size of the jury room (north corner) has been reduced by the extension of a former water closet into two full bathrooms. The elevator occupies the north corner of the courtroom entry foyer at the top of the stairs. The courtroom and associated consultation rooms occupy the southeast half of the second floor, with the judge’s bench facing northeast. The size of the courtroom has been reduced slightly by the extension of the consultation rooms behind the bench. The jury box on the southeast side of the room has been lengthened, and the wooden railing separating the visitor’s section from the bench and jury box has been moved a few feet to the northeast to allow adequate space for the bench and consul table. All walls are finished with flat hardwood paneling.

The courthouse is the visual and social focal point of the community, and despite changes to the exterior and interior, it retains a good degree of integrity.

County courthouses are the preeminent building type associated with local government in Texas, and are often the most prominent and sophisticated buildings of the counties in which they stand. The 1935 Loving County Courthouse is the only 2-story building in the least populated county in the United States. The building stands as the lone symbol of county government and serves as the visual and social focal point for the town of Mentone. Designed by architect and contractor Evan J. Wood of Pecos, Texas, the Moderne Style building is nominated to the National Register of Historic Places, under Criterion A, in the area of Politics/Government, at the local level of significance."

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Source: original nomination form to the US National Register of Historic Places.

(a PDF copy can be found at the following Texas Historical Commission FTP site -- just preface "ftp:" to the following URL since waymarking.com does not resolve ftp URL's and defaults it to "http:"): //ftp.thc.state.tx.us/nr_program/Loving%20County%20Courthouse%20NR.pdf)

Year of construction: 1935 Cross-listed waymark: [Web Link] Full inscription: 1935 LOVING COUNTY COURT-HOUSE

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