Anderson County Courthouse, Palestine

The Anderson County Courthouse rising above Palestine was the fourth courthouse this county had built, and the most ambitious. When fire destroyed the previous brick structure in nineteen thirteen, county leaders commissioned Austin architects Charles Page and Louis Page to design a replacement. The result, dedicated on December twentieth, nineteen fourteen, cost roughly two hundred fifty thousand dollars and announced itself with Beaux-Arts confidence: giant Ionic columns, pedimented porticoes on every facade, and a dome capped by a bronze Justice figure.

The building sits on the highest hill in Palestine, which meant it was visible from nearly every road into town. A restoration in nineteen eighty-six preserved its original character. It remains the working courthouse for Anderson County today.