Granbury Saved Its Clock Tower With Coupons and Pocket Change

The clock tower over Granbury's square almost disappeared after a 1968 tornado tore into it. County leaders considered taking the tower off. Norma Crawford, publisher of the Hood County News Tablet, answered with mail-in coupons that asked readers to save it. Commissioners received a flood of replies, and schoolchildren added coins for the repair. The tower stayed.

The building beneath it is Hood County's fifth courthouse. W.C. Dodson designed the native-limestone building in the French Second Empire style, and it went up in 1890 and 1891. Its tall tower and red-and-cream metalwork still anchor the square.

Saving the tower did more than mend storm damage. The Texas Historical Commission traces Granbury's wider preservation movement to that campaign. The Opera House and other downtown buildings followed. In 1974, the courthouse square gained a place on the National Register of Historic Places.

A restoration finished in 2011 peeled away later changes inside the courthouse. Workers reopened the district courtroom, restored floor-to-ceiling ornamental painting, and uncovered hand-painted designs on five vault doors and two safes. They also returned the 1890 Seth Thomas clockworks to service. The Texas Historical Commission's restoration account records county staff winding that clock by hand each month.