Victoria County has been home to four courthouses, if you count the hand-hewn log church used by the first Commissioners Court in 1837.
According to June Rayfield Welch, author of “The Texas Courthouse Revisited,” a petition was presented to the court asking that “…some other Court House be procured than the one now occupied as such that being the property of the Roman Catholic Church and built for the purpose of Religious Worship.”
An official courthouse was erected in 1849. When the county outgrew its home, the building was auctioned off and the site was cleared to make way for what would become a historic treasure. Designed by James Riely Gordon, Victoria County’s Romanesque Revival temple of justice, completed in 1892, is now one of the oldest courthouses in the Lone Star State.
According to Bill Morgan, author of “Old Friends: Great Texas Courthouses,” Victoria County folks took immense pride in their courthouse from the very beginning. Morgan writes: “When the courthouse cornerstone was laid on June 1, 1892, a crowd of 7,000 showed up from all over what was then Southwest Texas to welcome a building that has become a Texas landmark. No fewer than 32 cattle, hogs, and sheep were barbecued, augmented by 1,400 loaves of bread, 100 pounds of coffee, and a whole barrel of pickles, for a celebratory dinner that lasted several hours.”
The 1892 Courthouse is a State Antiquities Landmark and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. The beautiful county capitol underwent extensive renovation in the late 1990s and was formally rededicated in March of 2001.
By the mid-1960s, the county had once again outgrown its courthouse. A modern structure was completed in 1967 next door to the historic courthouse; both buildings are now in active use.
The county’s rich history dates back some 150 years before the first Commissioners Court meeting. In 1685, Robert Cavalier De Salle, upon his attempt to find the mouth of the Mississippi River, established Fort St. Louis. As this was the only French settlement in what is now Texas, Victoria County is the only county where all “six flags” have flown. The site, located just a few miles east of Victoria on what is now the Keeran Ranch, was in ruins by 1689. Fear of further intrusion into Spanish territory led to the settlement of Texas and the building of the great missions and presidios that dot the Texas landscape today.
The birthplace of the Texas cattle industry can be traced to the years 1726-1749 on the banks of the Guadalupe some 8 miles above Victoria. This operation later moved to Goliad when the Mission Espiritu Santo relocated in 1749.
In 1824, Martin de Leon successfully petitioned the Mexican government to establish a colony on the Guadalupe River. The village he founded was officially named Nuestra Señora de Guadalupe de Jesús Victoria, though it was referred to by the shorter name, Guadalupe Victoria, then simply Victoria. Victoria County was created out of de Leon’s Mexican colony, becoming one of the original 23 Texas counties in 1836.
For more information on the history of the Victory County Courthouse, go to https://www.vctx.org/page/1892.courthouse.