Leon County Courthouse & Waco's McLennan County Courthouse

The 1901 McLennan County courthouse was designed by famous Texas architect J. Riely Gordon in the Renaissance Revival style. I returned to Waco because I had never gone inside to see the interior. On September 30th my road companion, David Billingsley, and I headed to Waco from Houston.

The route took us to Centerville, county seat of Leon County. It is another courthouse that I have never had a chance to go inside. So we stopped in Centerville for about 20 minutes while I went inside. The front door hallway led to a stairwell to the second floor courtroom.  I asked the only clerk who was working for permission to go upstairs to the courtroom. She was kind enough to go up stairs and unlock the courtroom for me. The courtroom is like walking back into the early 1900's. The walls are painted a mauve color. Ventilation is provide by suspended Hunter ceiling fans. The flooring is a dark hardwood. I took several pictures and went back downstairs and thanked the county employee. We were headed west on Hwy 7 through Limestone County.

Leon County Courthouse

As we were traveling through Limestone County we passed a huge coal pit mine and generator plant. We decided to come back the same way to get a closer look.

Leon County Courthouse Courtroom

McLennan County Courthouse Dome Interior

We got to Waco about 10am. Entrance to the courthouse is in the basement where you are greeted by two McLennan County deputies. I introduced myself and they were more than helpful in getting me through the screening. The basement floor has a map of McLennan County imbedded into the stone floor. As you go to the center of the basement and look up you see the 4th floor dome interior with its blue stained glass ceiling. The walls are ornately decorated in gold leaf raised bow design. There are painted murals on the basement walls. I walked up the stairwell to the third floor and photographed the ornate stained glass ceiling. I took some interior courtroom photographs and it was time for me to leave. The exterior of the courthouse is basically the same as I had seen and photograph last year except for one thing, Lady Liberty missing her right arm holding the scales of justice. One of the deputies said they are trying to come up with a fix.

We made a stop at the Texas Ranger Hall of Fame and Museum, paid the admission and toured the museum. The Texas Rangers have left and indelible mark on Texas history and you can see it all in the museum.

Those CAT dump trucks cost over $5,000,000

We retraced our route back through Limestone County and stopped at the Texas Westmoreland Coal Mine Jewette and power generating station. We were fascinated by the two drag lines scooping up the coal and the $5 million CAT dump trucks moving coal from the bottom of the pit to the distribution station where the coal is moved to the power generators. There is a sign showing that they have mined 200,000,000 tons of coal.  That's a lot of coal.  We got back to Houston in time for me to get in going home traffic on US290.