Wiley G. Clarkson, Architect

Corsicana:  June 1908 to Dec. 1911

Fort Worth: Jan. 1912 to May 5, 1952

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Woodville, Texas

Tyler County Courthouse

Job date: 1935  No Job Number available

When reviewing a job inventory list from April, 1946 a job listed as the Tyler County Courthouse was noticed.  There was no number attached to the job or date.  When searching the internet for information on the Tyler County Courthouse, a was returned to the web site of architect Leonard Lane, of Houston, who has been photographing every courthouse in Texas and publishing the photos and a history of the courthouse on his web site 254 Texas Courthouses.  His research showed a remodeling jobo on the courthouse that helped pin this down as one of the Clarkson projects in 1935 to 1937.  I doubt there is recorded information regarding the architect at the time that history was written. The original courthouse was designed by the Corpus Christi architectural firm of Glover and Hodges in 1891 and constructed by the contractors M. A. McKnight and McKnight from 1891-1892.  The original courthouse, shown in a THC photo below, was the typical design of the period.  In 1935, the county commissioners decided to do a massive remodel and expansion project on the courthouse and used WPA funding for the project.  During this time, Clarkson was one of the principle architects for the WPA.  He designed a number of WPA projects, which included schools in the north Texas area.  The Clarkson style for some projects is very apparent.  He had used similar characteristics in other projects from about 1928 -1935 in Fort Worth that are still in use today, unchanged from when they were built and some having historical markers assigned to them.

Tyler County Court House Feb. 1, 2014

 

Tyler County Court House as originally designed in 1892