Bandera's Courthouse Gives Main Street Its Limestone Anchor

The courthouse at 504 Main Street gives downtown Bandera a fixed center. The county was organized in 1856, but county offices and courtrooms used makeshift quarters until the permanent courthouse went up in 1890-91.

The building is local in more than one way. Its white limestone was quarried nearby, and B. F. Trester of San Antonio drew the plans for five dollars. The style is a local version of Second Renaissance Revival, and the courthouse is a Texas Historic Landmark.

That is the kind of detail a quick drive through town can miss. Main Street is not just storefronts and weekend traffic; it has a courthouse whose material came from the county and whose public job has been tied to Bandera since the nineteenth century. The building gives the town a civic center that feels made from the same hills around it. It is a small but sturdy way to read the square, especially when the weekend crowds make the town feel more like a destination than a county seat.