Comal County Courthouse

Story

The Comal County Courthouse is located in New Braunfels in the U.S. state of Texas. It was added to the National Register of Historic Places in Comal County, Texas in 1976 and designated a Recorded Texas Historic Landmark in 1993.Comal County has had two courthouses. The first was designed by Wilhelm Thielepape and completed circa 1860, but had deteriorated in condition by the late 1890s. The current Romanesque Revival style courthouse was designed by James Riely Gordon and completed in 1898 by contractors Fischer and Lamie. Gordon, along with another San Antonio architect Albert Felix Beckmann, submitted bids to replace the courthouse designed by Thielepape. In addition to reviewing the bids, the county commissioners traveled to Gonzales to assess the architectural quality of the Gonzales County Courthouse, a work designed by Gordon and completed in 1896.Although the current structure has been somewhat modernized, and the original roof replaced, the basic structure remains the same. At the entrance, the original wood door has been replaced by a modernized glass and aluminum door. The exterior is of native limestone, and the southwest main two-story circular entrance balcony is supported by pink granite columns. The rear entrances have three-story quarter-circular bays. The ironwork on the interior centralized open stairway is the original. Atop the three-story building is a corniced stone tower.