Tested by time, historic building stands tall

When Hays County contracted C.H. Page and Bro., Architects to construct the county courthouse in 1908, Page was already an accomplished architect. The prodigious Page began his professional career when he was 16, and by 1908, at the age of 32, he had already designed the Texas Building at the St. Louis World's Fair and had begun a career that would lead author Francis White Johnson to describe him in the book "A History of Texas and Texans" as "foremost among the men of his calling, who aim to build beautifully useful structures." But even an architect with Page's credentials would have seen a challenge in building a structure that could withstand the sort of bad luck to which the county's previous courthouses had fallen victim.

From the time the Texas Legislature created Hays County in 1848, the W.W. Moon Hotel, located near what is now Hopkins and C.M. Allen streets, had been the meeting place for all county business. But in 1861 the county received $2,000 from a forfeited bail bond and decided to put the money toward a proper two-story, four-office courthouse in the center of the city square. That building lasted until 1868 when a mysterious fire reduced it to ashes. A new, larger building was constructed at a cost of $13,500 and held its first Commissioners Court meeting in December 1871.

The cloud of misfortune was not contained within the courthouse walls, either. According to the county-commissioned history book "Clear Springs and Limestone Ledges," Commissioner Lorenzo Dow Moore set out on an early morning in 1872 to find a missing horse and was killed by a roving band of American Indians.

"If you believe in karma and ghosts and that kind of stuff, that would be a great building for karma to hang around," said Rodney Van Oudekerke, vice chairman of the San Marcos Historic Preservation Commission. "I live in a house that's 120 years old, and there are too many strange things that happen in my house for me to say, 'It can't happen.'"

In 1876, an arsonist broke into the county clerk's office, doused a stack of files in kerosene and set them ablaze. The fire was contained, but instead of razing the building and starting over on another expensive construction project, the county fitted iron bands around the outside of the courthouse to mitigate the structural damage caused by the fire.

It was a solution that lasted until 1881, when the placement of the courthouse on the city square took on new importance. The courthouse straddles a fault in the Balcones Fault Zone, and in 1881 a geological movement within the zone destroyed the foundation of the building, requiring it to be torn down.

By 1881, San Marcos was becoming a hub for agriculture in Central Texas. The county's growing economic base allowed it to commission F.E. Ruffini to build a new courthouse in the same location, and in 1883, construction was completed. That building had many of the features of the current courthouse, including a domed top supporting a statue of Lady Justice. But it could not escape the previous courthouses' fates. On the morning of March 12, 1908, a fire roared through the Hill Country, and when one of the embers landed on the courthouse lawn, the entire building went up in flames. It was then that the county commissioned Page, who razed most of the building but left the foundation intact.

Page's courthouse opened in 1909 and has withstood tornadoes, floods and multiple bouts of renovations over the last 103 years.

Linda Coker is a member of the Hays County Historical Commission and has called San Marcos home since 1993. As a child she spent her summers just a few blocks from the courthouse, in her grandparents' San Antonio Street home.

"When I was a kid, I grew up in Lubbock," Coker said. "It's just flat, and I love it, and it's home, and I went to Tech, and I love Tech, but we would come here and stay summers, and we would have trees and hills and water, and it was just like paradise. San Marcos just kind of gets in you. It's kind of weird."

Coker said the building hasn't stopped surprising its occupants. A group of construction workers made an unexpected discovery while exploring the building's underground storage facility in 1965.

"They were wondering if the basement actually extended to the other half of the building," Coker said. "They were digging through and they dug through to a room. The room had a cot and a bookshelf, a whiskey bottle and men's magazines."

Coker's desk now sits atop that trap door, ensuring no one else will get any after-hours use out of the secret room.

When the Hays County Government Center opened in 2011, the Commissioners Court was faced with the option to move into the $66 million facility. Precinct 1 Commissioner Debbie Gonzales Ingalsbe said when the court took the building's history into account, the decision was not a hard one.

"I think that's really one of the reasons that some of us decided to stay here at the courthouse," Ingalsbe said. "It really does have so much history, and it is really a beautiful facility. We wanted to maintain a presence in downtown San Marcos."

The move proved to be a boon for Coker and the Historical Commission as well.

"As other offices moved to the government center, we basically just went through every office [in the courthouse] and marked what needed to be saved and started bringing it over here," she said.

The courthouse is now stocked with file cabinets, desks and chairs that have been in use since before Coker and the rest of the Historical Commission were born. The relics that aren't being put to practical use have been placed under glass in the recently opened museum on the courthouse's first floor. The Hays Historical Museum has been a dream for Coker and the commission for years. County Judge Bert Cobb granted Coker and the commission permission to move into the two first-floor offices on the condition that they "do something with them."

"We're just really lucky that we have people that really care," Coker said. "I don't know what it is that makes us different. The city gives a lot of support, and the county judges through the years have always been real supportive, so that helps when you know you can have a dream and get it done."

Hays Historical Museum

• Features: Photographs, artifacts and a theater room showing Hays County Historical Commission documentaries
• Hours: 10 a.m.–2 p.m. on the first and third Saturdays of the month
• Location: First floor, Hays County Courthouse, 111 E. San Antonio St., San Marcos

Hays County Courthouse, 111 E. San Antonio St., San Marcos, 512-393-7779