Carol C Taylor Blog

Ninety years ago, the courthouse at Greenville became the center of Hunt County and remains a very important part of the county even today. Since one of the district court rooms has been modified to allow trials to take place with certain restrictions during the pandemic, a review of the use of the two courtrooms might be interesting.

When the courthouse was opened in April 1929, the interior was described as “palatial”, and the court rooms were considered “regal throne rooms.” All walls in the interior were covered with oak paneling. The third and fourth floors were designed to house county and district court systems. The fifth and sixth floors were jails.

On the southeast corner of the third floor was the county court room. Quarter sawed oak was used to construct the judge’s screen, witness box, clerk’s table, reporter’s table and six jury chairs. A large number of opera chairs were provided for spectators. Behind the court room was the office of the county judge, adjoining the offices of the county commissioners. The County Judge’s quarters consisted of a reception room and a private office. The commissioners were provided with a reception room.

In the northeast corner were offices for the District Attorney and reception room. On the north side was the office of the District Clerk which had a special vault for records.

In the center of the north side of the third floor was the sheriff’s department with offices for deputies. Next to the deputies’ offices was a hold-over cell adjoining one of the elevators. Prisoners or attached witnesses could be place in this cell for safe-keeping.

The northwest corner was the office of the district judge with an office for the court reporter adjoining.

The district court room occupied practically all of the west side of the third floor. The district court room utilized two floors with a twenty-four-foot ceiling and balcony. Here, too, the furniture was quarter-sawed oak for the judge’s screen, the jury box, witness chairs, desks for clerk and court reporters. All the furniture as new and matching. To make the jury as comfortable as possible the jury box had comfortable chairs and brass foot rails. The main floor of the court room had benches of spectators while the balcony, which was entered from the floor above, had opera chairs. A spiral stair led to the dormitory of the floor above which was furnished with modern sleeping quarters and built-in marble tub baths, showers, and toilets.

To the east side of the fourth floor was another identical district court room. When the courthouse was built in 1929, it was hoped that the District Court of Appeals would be located in Hunt County, but Texarkana was chosen. The inclusion of two courtrooms was also to allow two trials at the same time. This courtroom also had a dormitory which was rationalized to the public as being used for women, if and when, women were ever allowed to serve on juries in district court cases.

Ironically, it would be a quarter of a century until women in Texas could serve on juries in the summer of 1954. As of this year 2021, Hunt County has an exemplary woman judge, Kelli Aiken.

I love railroads.

They are comfortable, quiet, and an enjoyable way to travel, I think. But railroads became important in the progress of the United States, especially after the Civil War.

Business between railroad companies and landowners was not always nice and polite. The small community of Celeste in far northeast Hunt County is a great example. Plus, the trading was not limited to Celeste. Every town had some kind of mischief in the deal throughout the country.

The first railroad in Hunt County was the Katy that pulled into Greenville on October 2, 1880. There was a huge celebration, lots and lots of cheers, food, bands and probably cheap liquor.

One of the lesser-known facts about gaining land rights and funding for railroads was that each town was expected to pay to have a train station and a means to carry crops and livestock to markets. Why do you think railroad magnate and financial speculator Jay Gould and his associates like Tom King accumulated such wealth? Have you heard the words “Robber Barons” used frequently in that time period?

Greenville paid an unknown amount of money to buy the land for those tracks and a freight depot as well as a Katy passenger depot. Not only that, but railroads also needed shops to repair engines, men to work on the tracks, and all sorts of expenditures.

In 1886 the Santa Fe Railroad asked businessmen and professional men in Greenville to help build a track from Wolfe City southwest to Farmerville via the lively little village of Kingston at the Katy railroad. Railroad men, business and professional men met at the Hunt County Court House to discuss the project. When the Santa Fe named its price, the Greenville men snubbed the amount and walked out. Greenville was definitely off the list with the Santa Fe.

So, the Santa Fe men went to Kingston, which also turned them down. What did the Santa Fe do?

They went 3 miles north of Kingston to purchase land on an open prairie crossing the Katy line. They acquired enough to build a town they named Celeste, in honor of the wife of one of the Santa Fe officials. The town was platted in 1886 and shortly received a post office.

Many of the Kingston’s merchants picked up and moved the 3 miles to the depot. The Kingston Masonic Lodge and three churches joined.

By 1900 Celeste had grown and Kingston became almost a ghost town. There were three gristmills and cotton gins. The town had two banks, one of which is still in business. The town had a graded public school, water works, an ice factory and thirty-five local businesses. In 1900, Celeste incorporated.

When World War I hit in 1914 the town was facing a depressed cotton market and boll weevil attacks on the cotton crops. Things only got worse when the Great Depression came along in 1929.

With the industry created at Majors Field flight school in Greenville, many made the move to Greenville. While some remain in homes in the small towns, a large population now inhabits the county seat. Yet, many remember living in country lifestyle.

The Santa Fe freight lines are still used, today.

Another wonderful idea from Georgia Walden’s Northeast Corner that appeared in the March 24, 1916 Commerce Journal. Definitely something to think about.

    “Another little wave
        Upon the sea of life,
    Another soul to save,
        Amid its toils and strife.

    Two more little feet
        To walk the dusty road,
    To choose where two paths meet,
        The narrow or the broad.

    Two more little hands
        To work for good or ill,
    Two more little eyes,
        Another little will.

    Another little heart to love,
        Receiving love again,
    And so the baby came,
        A thing of joy and pain.”

How many parents among the Journal’s readers thought of “Baby week?”

A grand mass meeting was held in Dallas on the 5th (March 15, 1916). Dr. Wm. H. Greenburg, Rabbi of Temple Emmanu El, presided. Dr. Greenburg said: “Baby Week is the most constructive idea of modern times and that the idea was born in the mind of a woman. I do not wonder the women are clamoring for the right to vote” he said. When they are given the ballot the rights of childhood will be protected.”

How many ‘big brothers’ and kindly sisters are there in Commerce who are in sympathy with the forlorn little ones of the street? If want and misery and ignorance surround the newborn with their blight, every kindly community agency should serve for the mother, not alone for the sake of the mother, not alone for the sake of the child, but for the big broad cause of humanity.

Nothing is so appealing as a baby. We hope the Baby Week observances will extend to every town and village and succeed in arousing both men and women, most of them parents from the lethargy into which they have drifted.

Who will organize a parents and teachers club in Commerce? The very salvation or every race depends on the wise training of our boys and girls by parents, teachers and friends.

The answer to a recent question I received is YES, after the Civil War Union soldiers occupied Greenville. Camping in the open was an invitation for immediate death.

The entire section of Northeast Texas was an enclave for armed former Confederates, deserters and just plain, common criminals. Any man who served in the Confederate armies east of the Mississippi was war-hardened, starving, and worn-out. When the war was over, they were sent home on foot, or on a horse if they owned it before they went to fight, one weapon with little ammunition and orders to live off the land.

The citizens who lived along the way were starving also, unable to feed the multitude of soldiers passing by. Many stopped in Shreveport to recoup before crossing into Texas. Once in the state, the men seemed to go wild. They resented those persons that supported the enemies, who were called Unionists. They resented recently freed slaves for causing the war. Soon they would fight the United States Army from the 98th parallel, sent west to protect farmers and ranchers looking for better land. A group of ten or twelve soldiers were sent to Greenville as well as to most county seats to protect the surroundings in the area. The small group cautiously moved into a log cabin a block from the courthouse.

Here comes the YES part. The men released from the Confederate army became known as Bushwhackers. Riding at night they seemed to have collected fresh horses and plenty of ammunition. Here are some of their shenanigans. Hearing that a group of former slaves were hiding in a log cabin way out of town, the outlaws surrounded the cabin and killed everyone.
They ambushed any one not on their side.

In Sulphur Springs young men who missed the war, rode up and down the street firing at Union soldiers and their wives who had braved the trip to Texas. Even the District Judge was shot outside of Bonham, his guards abandoned him, but he finally made it back to Greenville.

One prominent Greenville gentleman was offended by a Union soldier, pulled out his gun and pistol-whipped the soldier. At some point he realized the soldier might die, he headed for his horse and galloped out of town. However, as he rode out of town, he told someone where he was going. His wife and children soon joined him shortly. It was a long time before they returned to Greenville.

Women and children did not go outside, not to town, and even to church. The first Christmas celebration was held at the Hunt County Courthouse in December 1871. It is difficult to imagine such confusion, violence, deleterious events people around Northeast Texas suffered until 1869 when the last of the bushwhackers were killed.

To learn more about this time period in Northeast Texas, read The Devil’s Triangle: Ben Bickerstaff, Northeast Texans, and the War of Reconstruction in Texas, by James Smallwood, Kenneth Howell, and Carol Taylor. Available at University of North Texas Press, Denton, Texas. (untpress.unt.edu)