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Victoria
County Courthouse
©2007 Bill Morgan. All
rights reserved
VICTORIA COUNTY - Part of the genius of James
Riely Gordon is reflected in the poll I took of people who had actually
compared all 254 of Texas' courthouses. He almost ran the table -- five of his
buildings are among the Top Twelve as decided by the voters, seven made the top
25 and a dozen were among the top 35.
J. Riely Gordon could draw
pretty pictures, no doubt, but the Victoria courthouse convinced me that his
greatest genius might have been in what he made happen inside those massive
buildings. In designing the Victoria County courthouse, he must have first
considered the Texas brush country climate-you know, 100-plus humid degrees,
like a hog-rendering plant in August with all the windows nailed shut.
So Gordon borrowed an old Mexican custom, designing the building around a
courtyard. That open well gave every office an outside view and, more
importantly, it served as a vortex to grab any passing breeze in a funnel-like
grip and whip it through the building.
Frank Crain officed in the
courthouse for a dozen years in the 1950s and '60s. "We lost the courtyard by
degrees," he explained. "First, they put a roof over the first floor of the
courtyard in 1932 or '33 for a tobacco and newspaper stand. Then at about the
same time, they added a library over the first floor and put in window units to
air condition the building.
"People who worked in the courthouse
through all that told me that the original courtyard cooled the building better
than the window units did."
Riely Gordon could have taught Dave Lennox
a thing or two.
Buy A Print
11x17 prints
on sturdy stock of the Victoria County Courthouse are available on my ordering
page. The cost is $20 for the first print and $16 for additional prints of
this, or any of the other 11 courthouses, purchased at the same time. (Add $3
for shipping) |
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