Walnut Room this way

Walnut Room this way
Rio.

Saturday, January 4, 2014

Miller County Courthouse, Texarkana

 The Miller County, Arkansas courthouse is located on the Arkansas side of Texarkana.  The 1939 Moderne-style of Art Deco building was constructed under the Works Progress Administration (WPA) by Manhattan Construction (National Register of Historic Places, nationalregisterofhistoricplaces.com/AR/Miller/state.html).
E. C. Siebert, formerly of Witt, Siebert, and Halsey in Texarkana, designed and supervised the building while serving as mayor of Texarkana (Arkansas Historic Preservation Program). 




The top floor served as the jail at one time.  The bars are visible on the photograph at the top of the page.  It is unknown if the space is currently in use for any purpose.  Jails on the top floor of courthouses was apparently quite common, for example, in the Concordia Parish courthouse in Vidalia, Louisiana and the Stephens County courthouse in Breckenridge, Texas.
Little history on the effects of the Depression on Miller County has been recorded.  A Works Progress Administration (WPA) office was located for a time in the Victory Hotel in Texarkana. (B. J. Rowe, "Miller County." Encyclopedia of Arkansas)
Arkansas: A Guide to the State, 1941, was included in the Federal Writers Project materials, and Arkansas, like other states, was the recipient of New Deal funds for relief, employment, and construction of new buildings, roads, and other forms of infrastructure.

3 comments:

Lana Pugh said...

Texas has big beautiful imposing courthouses. I went to a photography conference in Wichita Falls, TX while I was still in college and we took a day trip to Archer City. Now that is a beautiful courthouse! I have pictures of it somewhere at my parent’s house I think....

Suzassippi said...

I can't even remember what the Archer County courthouse looks like, and there is no telling how many times I have been past it. But, I can tell you about the Last Picture Show. I guess it was the difference in what I was interested in back then. LOL

Lana Pugh said...

That was something neat they did for us at the conference that night. We got to watch the Last Picture Show in the theater! Very cool. I'm so glad my dad got to go with me on that trip. My grandfather was stationed at Sheppard Airforce Base when he was a kid and it was the first time he had been back since they left.