Dr. O.H. Graham of Kerrville sends a letter describing an auto trip he, age 8, took with his family in 1925 from Thorndale (Milam County) to O'Donnell and Tahoka (Lynn County) and Amherst (Lamb County) on the High Plains. His father bought a town lot for $50 in Amherst.

(I wish there had been space for the whole letter, which is a wonderful account of auto travel in Texas 75 years ago, when paved roads and tourist courts were few, and tires were subject to frequent flats.)

As the Graham family returned south from Lynn County, they camped at an abandoned courthouse, a two-story frame with a wide south porch. Dr. Graham thinks it was above the cap rock, but he asks where it might have been.

My first idea was Rayner, former seat of Stonewall County, where a beautiful old courthouse (1889) sits all alone. The county seat was moved to nearby Aspermont by 1896. The old courthouse has been a private residence for many years. But Rayner is brick and stone and is below the cap rock, that high palisade that lifts the High Plains some 200 to 500 feet above the area below.

Texas has a number of interesting abandoned courthouses. A relatively recent (1954) abandonment is at Clairemont, which lost the Kent County seat to Jayton - but kept the first story, at least, of the red sandstone courthouse after the structure burned.

My favorite abandoned courthouse is at Sherwood, in Irion County, where the lovely Victorian structure is now a pigeon-haunted community center. The county seat was moved to nearby Mertzon in 1936. Sherwood is off the main highway, but it makes a wonderful picnic stop for travelers who reach it over a narrow, tree-shaded concrete road along Spring Creek, which always carries water.

A picturesque abandoned courthouse is at Stiles, in Reagan County. The county seat was relocated southward to Big Lake in 1925. The Stiles courthouse sits alone, observable from miles away. Blanco still has its noble courthouse, but the county seat of Blanco County was moved to Johnson City many years ago - a brazen political power grab, Blanco claims.

Most Texas county seats have either been moved or survived a contest for honor. Buffalo Gap, in Taylor County, was a typical victim. When the county seat was moved to Abilene, on the railroad, in 1883, Buffalo Gap lost population, and its Presbyterian college closed. And while it remains a beautiful village, it never regained its frontier importance.

A.C. Greene is an author and Texas historian who lives in Salado.

© Copyright 1999 The Dallas Morning News