Rio Grande City · Starr County · Dedicated 1854 · THC Atlas #4302002637
The stone-and-brick heart of every Texas county.
Marker Inscription
The Starr County Courthouse was constructed in 1856, originally designed as the Mifflin Kenedy Warehouse. In 1865, the former warehouse was designated as the first courthouse of Starr County. The two-story building is constructed of brick that has been painted a pale shade of green. The structure is surmounted by a hip roof. A wooden balcony extends along the entire length of the front facade. An exterior stair provides access to the second story. The building was used as a courthouse until 1885, when a new courthouse was constructed.
About this site
Starr County Courthouse (1854) is a courthouse in Rio Grande City, Starr County, dedicated in 1854. It is one of 2 courthouses documented in Starr County in the Texas Historical Commission Atlas, among 134 historic sites cataloged across the county.
The site sits at 26.3788, -98.8223 near Rio Grande City. The nearest cataloged historic site is Mifflin Kenedy Warehouse & Old Starr County Courthouse (historic place), about under a tenth of a mile away. Others within a short drive include Yzaguirre-Longoria House, Site of Cortina Battle, and Rio Grande City, C.S.A..
This record corresponds to Texas Historical Commission Atlas #4302002637. Use the map below for its exact position and turn-by-turn directions.
Starr County's first courthouse in Rio Grande City was a two-story warehouse on Water Street, built about 1854 and owned by steamboat magnate Mifflin Kenedy, which the county used as its courthouse until roughly 1886. The 1854 structure still stands; historians have suggested that two skeletons found on its patio may have belonged to men who died at a nearby hanging tree. A second courthouse by architect Samuel W. Brooks of Brownsville followed in 1881, and the county's present Moderne courthouse, designed by Stanley Bliss, was built in 1939.
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