Texas has 254 counties. Almost all of them are run by governments with headquarters in county courthouses, many of which sit on squares in the middle of the county seat.
Not so in Randall County, the second-most populous county in the Texas Panhandle.
The county courthouse, which used to house the government, is rotting on the inside. Its exterior, though, looks nice and spiffy. But the guts of county government has just finished its move off the courthouse square and into the County Finance Building. The Commissioners Court now will begin meeting in the finance structure, leaving the courthouse square to the vacant 101-year-old building formerly known as the county courthouse.
This is a major quandary for the county. It no longer needs the courthouse building. It has moved everything off the square. The criminal justice offices — including courtrooms, prosecutors and clerks — operate in the Justice Center more than a mile northeast of the courthouse square.
The old county courthouse no longer is a functioning part of life in Randall County.
One day — let us hope soon — someone will find a use for the courthouse building. The new tenant will have to find a way to fix up its interior to a condition matching its exterior. It just doesn’t look as though it’s going to be its former occupant: county government.