County Seat: Panhandle * Population: 6,182 (2010 Census)
The Carson County Courthouse was completed in 1950 in a Modern style as designed by architect J.C. Berry. The concrete, brick, and steel structure came with an initial cost of about $465,000.
According to “The Courthouses of Texas” by Mavis P. Kelsey Sr. and Donald H. Dyal, “Lonely cowboys used to come to dances held on the top floor of the old 1888 courthouse,” the county’s inaugural capitol.
Historian June Rayfield Welch tells more of the story in “The Texas Courthouse Revisited” with the following: “Jurors were in short supply, and judges appreciated the convenience of sending upstairs for a dancing cowboy to press into jury service when a venire was skimpy. The floor had to be replaced every other year because of the heavy use. Some taxpayers resented
the expenditure of public funds to replace property worn out by revelry in which they did not share.”
The second county courthouse, completed in 1909, was eventually razed; the cornerstone on the southeast corner of the courthouse square is all that
remains.
Carson County was created in August 1876 from Young and Bexar territories and named after Samuel P. Carson, a statesman of the Republic of Texas and of the United States. The county was organized in June 1988 with Panhandle, originally named Carson City, as the county seat.
Historical markers throughout the county give a glimpse into the area’s rich past. For example, in the 1874-1888 era, the High Plains (a sea of grass) had no native timber, stone, or adobe building materials. Homes were dugouts, or if settlers’ wagons went some 300 miles for lumber, half-dugouts. Warm in winter, cool in summer, some of the dugouts were carpeted and cloth-lined. Others had an extra room for the schoolteacher. An exact replica of a Carson County half-dugout was donated by Opal Purvines to honor her parents and other pioneer families, and is available for viewing.
Carson County was home to the first bookmobile in Texas, called theLibrary Bus. Bright red and visible for miles, the Library Bus stopped a ranches, schools, and oil camps and circulated 2,000 books a month. The mobile library served communities in Carson County in an era of sparse settlement, during World War II growth, and later in the midst of industrialization.
The historic Square House, built of lumber hauled by oxcart from Dodge City, Kansas, in the 1880s, is just one of 21 buildings, galleries, and large outdoor artifacts that make up the Square House Museum complex in Panhandle. Exhibits and a full-sized diorama tell the story of the Texas Panhandle through the Indian Wars, cattle ranches, and the coming of the railroad, to the oil boom of the 1920s (https://squarehousemuseum.weebly.com).
Finally, The Groom Cross, officially named “The Cross of Our Lord Jesus Christ,” rises 19 stories and can be viewed for miles. The steel structure, which weighs 2.5 million pounds, was erected in July 1995.