Rusk's 1941 Courthouse Has an Old Jail Story Upstairs

Cherokee County's active courthouse at 135 South Main Street dates to 1941. Dallas architects Gill and Bennett designed it in the Moderne style, and the WPA served as contractor.

The walls use rusticated ashlar limestone with shell-limestone and metal details. Ornamental metal grills cross the windows. The stone walls and clean metal lines give the building a workmanlike face.

The building kept changing inside. An elevator arrived in 1995. The old third-floor jail, abandoned in 1989, was renovated for office space in 1998. The stone and metal still tell the public-works story outside; upstairs, an old jail became part of the courthouse's everyday work.