This afternoon, on the way back to Austin, I drove through Columbus, the seat of Colorado County, and added photos of one more Texas County Courthouse to my collection. The midday light was not ideal, but I had a go.
Colorado County's courthouse is an interesting subject in that the real story of the county is present both in the courthouse itself as a product of an age when properity grew from the cotton fields, in the lots across the street from it where wealthy planter families raised their banks and buildings, and in the odd fortress-looking structure on the Southeast corner of the grounds that evidently holds a Confederate memorial museum like some mystery cult's shrine.
The photos I got show a dark side and a light side to the courthouse, and I'm not sure that isn't how things actually are in the lens of history.
The light side (with laughably small fountain where the flags usually go).
The dark side, complete with magnolias, flags (the Confederate flag presumably securely stowed away in the round structure with the crenellated parapet), and the corporate buildings of the families made rich by their dominance, just out of frame.
Beautiful masonry structure, and apparently well kept.
PS - it looks like it took you four minutes to walk around the building. Did you charge your client for the "research"? 😉
paden cash, post: 425986, member: 20 wrote: Beautiful masonry structure, and apparently well kept.
PS - it looks like it took you four minutes to walk around the building. Did you charge your client for the "research"?
I only bill in 15-minute increments, so it actually didn't take any time at all. :>
paden cash, post: 425986, member: 20 wrote: Beautiful masonry structure, and apparently well kept.
Part of the story to that courthouse is that a tornado blew through town in 1909, tearing the bell tower off that had originally risen above the main mass of the building, sending the bell falling to land half-buried in the lawn, and leaving the fellow who had been paid $15.00 per month to keep the clock wound without a job.
BTW, the new concrete sidewalks look as if a highway planner was asked to lay out a bypass route so that no one would trouble the civil servants at work within the building by actually arriving.
Makes me wonder what the vertical clearance is on the corners between the sidewalk and the fire escape. Looks like a "head knocker" waiting to happen.
paden cash, post: 425993, member: 20 wrote: Makes me wonder what the vertical clearance is on the corners between the sidewalk and the fire escape. Looks like a "head knocker" waiting to happen.
Yes, clearances can be tough, as this turtle I found today discovered while trying to negotiate a cattle guard. (I picked him out of there and set him in the ditch he seemed to be heading toward in the first place.)
Just out of curiosity, how many courthouses have you photographed?
We may've passed you. Sitting here in at the Beaumont holiday inn plaza waiting for the oldest's first soccer game of the day. Found it curious to run into Bob Phillips last night when we got in- he's in the next room.
[USER=3]@Kent McMillan[/USER]
Your turtle must have been drunk on fermented berries when it attempted to do the turtle equivalent of a tight rope walk along that section of rail. I envision it handing a couple berry remnants to a buddy and saying, "Hold my berry and watch this. Yeeeeee hawwwwwww!!!!!!!"
Tommy Young, post: 426026, member: 703 wrote: Just out of curiosity, how many courthouses have you photographed?
I haven't kept count, but considering how many counties there are in Texas, it's a slim minority of the total. I mostly just take the shots when I'm there on business or passing through for the same reason.
Holy Cow, post: 426031, member: 50 wrote: [USER=3]@Kent McMillan[/USER]
Your turtle must have been drunk on fermented berries when it attempted to do the turtle equivalent of a tight rope walk along that section of rail. I envision it handing a couple berry remnants to a buddy and saying, "Hold my berry and watch this. Yeeeeee hawwwwwww!!!!!!!"
There were plenty of dewberry vines everywhere, with loads of ripe fruit. I just don't think turtle brains evolved to size up the spacing on cattleguard rails.
Holy Cow, post: 426031, member: 50 wrote: [USER=3]@Kent McMillan[/USER]
Your turtle must have been drunk on fermented berries when it attempted to do the turtle equivalent of a tight rope walk along that section of rail. I envision it handing a couple berry remnants to a buddy and saying, "Hold my berry and watch this. Yeeeeee hawwwwwww!!!!!!!"
I'm surprised Kent didn't ask the turtle if he was a democrat or republican before deciding to give him a helping hand...;)
paden cash, post: 426046, member: 20 wrote: I'm surprised Kent didn't ask the turtle if he was a democrat or republican before deciding to give him a helping hand...;)
Kent's only concerned was whether the turtle was operating on a fixed fee basis...upon ascertaining that the turtle only works for time and materials he was glad to lend a hand.
I was hoping there would be a California County in Texas but it's not to be. The best google could do is Solano County which is on Texas Street in Fairfield, California.
And there is this:
California Creek, formerly Painted Cave Spring Creek[1] a stream in Val Verde County, Texas, formerly a tributary of Devils River it now flows into the north side of Amistad Reservoir at an elevation of 1119 feet. California Creek has its source at 29å¡37Û?29Û?N 101å¡02Û?14Û?W.[2]
paden cash, post: 426046, member: 20 wrote: I'm surprised Kent didn't ask the turtle if he was a democrat or republican before deciding to give him a helping hand...
Turtles, unlike humans, cannot be reasonably expected to know any better and so cannot be accountable for their choices.
Kent McMillan, post: 426041, member: 3 wrote: I haven't kept count, but considering how many counties there are in Texas, it's a slim minority of the total. I mostly just take the shots when I'm there on business or passing through for the same reason.
I've sort of started doing the same thing. I've been taking pictures of every courthouse in counties I've surveyed in. I'm up to about 50 in 5 different states, and I know of at least 30 I worked in before I started taking pictures. I've got them in a Facebook album if anyone is interested..
Tommy Young, post: 426130, member: 703 wrote: I've sort of started doing the same thing. I've been taking pictures of every courthouse in counties I've surveyed in. I'm up to about 50 in 5 different states, and I know of at least 30 I worked in before I started taking pictures. I've got them in a Facebook album if anyone is interested..
What interests me about the Texas county courthouses is taking a photo that captures something about the place and people beyond just the building. In Texas, that means the siting of the building, the monuments on the grounds (like that howitzer in front of the Upshur County Courthouse of which I posted a photo) as well as the intanglble aspirations present in the past when the thing was built.
BTW, I trust you've found that the time of day and light is the critical element in photographing courthouses. This is where a surveyor who is there in the golden hour toward dusk has a great advantage over someone who showed up at some random time during the day.
This one of the Willbarger County Courthouse in Vernon interests me in the attitude it presents to travellers passing on US Hwy 183 toward Oklahoma.
Kent McMillan, post: 426133, member: 3 wrote: This one of the Willbarger County Courthouse in Vernon interests me in the attitude it presents to travellers passing on US Hwy 183 toward Oklahoma.
And here is the Colorado County Courthouse in a photo taken yesterday in light that cast more interesting shadows than were there around midday a couple of days earlier.
Photoshop has a neat tool that will pretty much eliminate that keystoning in your shots.
