While in office as county judge, Edward T. McFarland accomplished many things, but tearing down the quaint old "domed" courthouse in Lufkin wasn't one of them.
"J.T. Maroney Jr. was in office when the dome was torn down, but I get a lot of credit for it," McFarland said, well aware of rumors that still circulate about his time in office as county judge from January 1955 to December 1958.
The Lufkin courthouse was built on an unstable foundation that during dry times caused the courthouse house walls to crack and pull away. To prevent the western wall from collapsing, beams were placed around the courthouse to prop it up.
"Everyone thought he did it for political purposes, but the truth of the matter was the damn thing would have fallen down if they hadn't done that," McFarland said.
In December 1953, two years before McFarland took office, 1,548 Angelina County voters approved a $600,000 courthouse and jail bond election — opposed by less than a third of the voters.
McFarland also inherited the $500,000 contract the previous court awarded for construction of the new courthouse, and oversaw its construction which included a 4-inch expansion joint.
"It dispels any (allegations of political motivations) but they'll never admit it. The average person doesn't like to be confronted with facts; they would rather believe myths," he said.
As it was, Angelina County's first commissioners' court awarded a bid for a courthouse in spring of 1847, and this going unrealized for reasons left unrecorded by commissioners' minutes, the court contracted a second design the following year. The county's first two-story log courthouse was completed in spring of 1849. When the county seat was relocated, through state-mandated elections, from Marion to Jonesville and then Homer in 1858, the court that June paid Samuel Mantooth $225 to disassemble the log courthouse at Marion and reassemble it in Homer, according to commissioners' minutes.
Years later plans were made for a 50-foot square brick courthouse in Homer — also called "Angelina" — for $5,250. Construction of the walls began January 1861, but with the county's unwilling entrance to the Confederacy and consequently the Civil War, the brick courthouse was left uncompleted. Afterward the court tore it down and sold the bricks, opting instead to build a two-story frame courthouse in 1873, according to Boon.
Two decades later, the frame courthouse burned down and the county again relocated its seat of government, this time to Lufkin where business leaders promised to help build the next courthouse. This two-story frame building was built on land purchased in 1892 from two different railway companies.
Lufkin's first courthouse was updated with a brick courthouse in 1902, a cornerstone from this courthouse can be seen in the hallways of the first floor of today's courthouse. Today's courthouse, completed and dedicated under McFarland's watch, was the first courthouse between Dallas and Houston to offer an elevator, McFarland said. McFarland also introduced electronic typewriters and blue print machines to the new courthouse.
Twenty years later, former county judge Claude E. Welch doubled the courthouse in size with the addition of a second wing for more courtrooms and offices — without a bond election.
"Up to that time any time they ever tried to do any kind of expansion project it became a political football and took years to get done," he said. "I talked them into doing certificates of obligation so we didn't have to take it to the public. We just voted on it and did it."
During the latter half of the 20th century the tax assessor's office moved from the old jail building on the courthouse square facing Frank Avenue to the old bank building beside the post office on Lufkin Avenue. Joining them at the courthouse annex for lack of space at the main courthouse were the county judge, the commissioners, the auditor, and the county treasurer. Today the old jail building is used by the officer of emergency management, indigent welfare service, and veteran services. And the technology department has taken over the third floor of the courthouse, which was also once used for a jail.
Former county judge Joe Berry warned commissioners' court during the 2007 budget workshops that they would soon need to contend with lack of space at the courthouse once more.
