|
Courthouses of San Patricio County
Eight structures have served as the seat of local government for the people of San Patricio County since its earliest settlement. A building known as the “Log Courthouse” was constructed in San Patricio in the early 1830s to serve the people of the San Patricio Colony. Although the county of San Patricio was not created until 1837.
County records reveal that court was held in a new frame
courthouse in 1853. Sometime prior to the Civil War, construction began on
a stone courthouse, but it was never completed due to the unsettled times of
the war. Records show that many local residents used stones form the
construction site to build chimneys for their homes.
In 1872 a new courthouse was completed. Built by Viggo Kohler, it housed court for the first time on July 15. Two jury rooms added to opposite sides of the courthouse square in 1876 served as a temporary courthouse after a fire in 1889 destroyed the 1872 building.
After an election in 1894 resulted in the county seat’s relocation to Sinton. A courthouse was built here by Otto P. Kroeger. It was replaced by a new structure in 1927. Texas Sesquicentennial 1935-1985 |
   |
  |
 In 1828 empresarios John McMullen and James McGloin contracted with the
government of Mexico to settle 200 Irish Catholic families on eighty leagues
of land in the area. The first groups of families, recruited from the Irish
population of New York, landed at El Copano and Matagorda in late 1829; two
other groups soon followed. After a brief stopover at the old Refugio
mission, the colonists proceeded to the north side of the Nueces River and
established the town of San Patricio de Hibernia, named after the patron
saint of Ireland. In 1834 the colony was legally established as the
Municipality of San Patricio in the Mexican state of Coahuila and Texas. San
Patricio County was established in 1836 by the Congress of the new Republic
of Texas. Far larger than the current county, the
Courthouse in the late 1920s |
original San Patricio
County included territory later incorporated into other counties. In 1845
Corpus Christi was designated the county's seat of government and remained
so until 1846, when San Patricio County lost all of its territory south of
the Nueces River to the newly established Nueces County. That year the town
of San Patricio became San Patricio County's seat.
