Presidio County was organised in 1871 and ran from the Rio Grande to the Davis Mountains, with its seat at Fort Davis. The courthouse there later burned, and the record of the election that had chosen it burned with it. So when the Galveston, Harrisburg and San Antonio Railway laid track across the north of the county in the early 1880s and a water stop called Marfa grew up beside the line, the railroad town had its opening: it disputed a result nobody could produce. A second election was held in July 1885, Marfa was proclaimed the winner, and the county records were hauled the twenty odd miles from Fort Davis that same month.
The relocated commissioners court called for courthouse designs within six months. Alfred Giles won the design and Colonel J. H. Britton the construction, and the Dallas Morning News reported an exciting contest with nineteen contractors bidding and the bids close together. The Second Empire building that went up in 1886, mansard roof, central tower and Italianate detail, cost about sixty thousand dollars and was opened with a grand ball on the first day of 1887. It still closes the head of Highland Avenue.
The losing side did not settle for it. In March 1887 Fort Davis and the ranch country around it were carved out as Jeff Davis County, taking the mountains and the cooler grass and leaving Presidio County the long desert run south to the river. The county that lost its seat left the county.
Getting there
30.3133, -104.0221
Locations are approximate and may be inaccurate, on private land, or otherwise inaccessible. Check before you travel.
Hear it from the road
Whistlestop tells you this story automatically when you drive past. No searching, no tapping, nothing to ask.
