#TBT: Nueces County's first courthouse built in 1853
When Nueces County was organized in 1846, the county commissioners conducted business in meetings held in their own homes. After several years of this, they decided a courthouse was needed. Felix von Blucher, a surveyor by trade, was hired to design the new building. Construction took three years but in 1853 the new $4,000 shellcrete building on Mesquite Street was ready for business.
However, the plans that included a jail were left out. So when Sheriff Mat Nolan had people to lock up, he had to either put them in a boarding house at his own expense or let them go. Deputy Tom Nolan, Mat’s brother, was killed in an Aug. 4, 1850 shootout by a man who probably should have been in jail. The man, a local storekeeper, got drunk and started a fight. The sheriff took him home to sleep it off, but he got back up and headed to La Retama Saloon to fight some more. He stabbed the saloon owner and in the ensuing shootout, Tom Nolan was shot and killed. Townspeople chased down the drunk and shot him to death.
The Ranchero, a weekly newspaper in Corpus Christi, noted in the Nov. 3, 1860 edition that another prisoner had escaped. O.M. Jackson, arrested for the murder of a person only listed as “Heganbottom of Santa Rosa,” was shackled and held in a shed. The Ranchero wrote, “Through the assistance of his wife he obtained a file, cut off his irons, and then majestically crawled out of the shed where he was confined… Here is another instance of the escape of an undoubted criminal, because of there being no county jail. On next Tuesday, each voter will have the right to give his preference, through the ballot box, for tax or against tax to build a jail.” The tax passed by five votes, but the start of the Civil War derailed those plans.
Following the Civil War, a yellow fever epidemic hit the city in 1867. Most of the city council members died, leaving the city without a government. The county commissioners took over the city’s work and conducted both city and county affairs from the courthouse. An iron lock-up, basically a metal cage, was added to the second floor of the courthouse to act as a defacto jail. Three prisoners escaped shortly after its installation by picking the lock during the night when the jail was unguarded.
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The 1853 courthouse was also the site of the first officially sanctioned hangings in the county. A gallows was built as an extension off the second floor balcony. In May 1874, four men were killed during a raid on in a small town near Baffin Bay. Two of the raiders were captured and brought to Corpus Christi for trial. They were found guilty and hanged on Aug. 7.
In 1875, the county’s newest courthouse opened next to the old courthouse. This courthouse was often referred to as the Hollub courthouse, named after its designer Rudolph Hollub, who had been a surveyor in the Union Army. The new courthouse was built of concrete blocks with a wooden façade and cost $15,000. The old courthouse next door was used as a jury room, jail and county offices.
In 1892, the county finally got a standalone jail house, this one built on the other side of the old courthouse. Contractors Reid and Sullivan included a scaffold for hangings on the back of the building.
The complex of courthouse buildings on Mesquite served the county until 1913, when they finally outgrew the space. The new 1914 courthouse was built south of the other buildings, which were torn down when the new six-story structure was completed. And Nueces County’s third courthouse still stands on Mesquite Street, empty since 1977.
Allison Ehrlich writes about things to do in South Texas and has a weekly Throwback Thursday column on local history.
This article originally appeared on Corpus Christi Caller Times: #TBT: Nueces County's first courthouses lacked jail but saw hangings
