Pennington Once Held a College and the County Seat

In 1874, Trinity County voters moved the county seat to Pennington. The town received a courthouse and the daily business of county government. A courthouse fire and the theft of district court records in 1880 helped reopen the question of where those offices belonged.

Pennington already had another civic ambition. On July 28, 1870, the Texas Legislature approved an act founding Pennington College. The charter made the school coeducational and allowed it to grant degrees in arts and sciences. Its two-story building stood just south of town, and classes opened in fall 1871.

For part of the 1870s, then, Pennington held both a college and Trinity County's government. That was a surprisingly large public role for one Piney Woods community.

The overlap did not last. On October 7, 1882, voters chose the sawmill and railroad town of Groveton as the next county seat. Official records moved 13 days later. Pennington's brief run still explains why its old story holds both a college charter and a courthouse.