Hemphill County Courthouse - Canadian, TX - Courthouses on Waymarking.com

County of courthouse: Hemphill County
Location of courthouse: 400 Main St., Canadian
Phone: 806.323.6212

"Hemphill County Judge Steve Vandiver said government has outgrown the capacity of the municipal buildings that were built in the early 1900s.
"When this courthouse was built, the clerk might have had a deputy," said Vandiver, the Hemphill County judge. "Now, each elected official has a staff, and they require desks and workstations."
Hemphill County has responded to growth by initiating a renovation of its historic courthouse, located at 400 Main St. in Canadian and built in 1908.
The county recently approved a less than $1 million bid for the first phase of the renovation. The entire project, estimated to cost the county about $5 million or $6 million, is expected to take at least four years to finish.
The first phase, which will start soon, will involve tuck pointing of the building's bricks and a replacement of the existing boiler system with a more modern heating and air conditioning unit.
The second phase, slated to begin next year, will involve work on the floors and doors and additional renovation to the building's interior. The renovation will provide more space for some county offices. The extension office will be relocated during the project.
Vandiver said there is also a very good chance that county commissioners will move to the county's law enforcement center, which is on the courthouse square.
"We need more space," he said. "Our previous renovations were almost 30 years ago."
Unlike the projects done on the courthouses in Randall and Potter counties, Hemphill won't receive any money from the Texas Historical Commission to work on its historic building.
Vandiver said his county decided to forgo state funding because it wanted to keep the buildings that were added to the square after the courthouse was built.
A jail facility and the county clerk's record vault were added after the courthouse was built. To receive state money for courthouse restorations, counties had to remove any building or element that was not originally part of the courthouse.
"That's just not viable economically or architecturally," Vandiver said.
Vandiver said few at the turn of the 20th century would have known about how much growth cities and counties in the state would have seen by now. He said the state's population affected the size of government.
"We've got records stacked everywhere in this courthouse," he said, "and we have 100-some years of records." ~ Amarillo Globe-News

Restoration:
The Hemphill County Courthouse in Canadian, TX was originally built in 1909 in the Texas Renaissance style. The courthouse’s exterior was renovated in 2011 by MCR. The renovation included shoring, demoing and relaying thirteen brick arches as well as repairing and re-plastering the base of the 1909 structure and coating it with ThoroCoat. New terra cotta cap units were placed where damage units existed and then the entire structure’s masonry joints were inspected and repointed where necessary. MCR also patched the damaged limestone sills and patched any damaged terra cotta cornices. Any cracks in the masonry were repaired and then the structure was masonry cleaned to restore the courthouse’s bright brick beauty.