Town rose from ashes of ’93 fire at courthouse
HILLSBORO — Debbie Rosson remembers that January morning in 1993, back when she worked at McDonald’s on Interstate 35. Driving along the dark streets at 4 a.m., on her way to her breakfast-prep duties, she glanced toward the venerable Hill County Courthouse and noticed an orange glow. It looked like somebody had left the lights on all night, she recalled earlier this week.
By the time Egg McMuffins had given way to Big Macs, Rosson and most everybody else in this Central Texas town 60 miles south of Dallas knew the real story: An electrical short on New Year’s night had reduced their 102-year-old courthouse, the veritable heart of the community, to four limestone walls and a pile of blackened rubble. Irreplaceable county records were gone forever. The building’s iconic 70-foot-tall bell tower had collapsed. Its 1,525-pound bell, cast in Baltimore, had crashed through the roof before coming to rest in the district courtroom. No one was in the building when it caught fire.
These days, Rosson works as a deputy district clerk on the second floor of a beautifully reconstructed courthouse. It took six years, $9 million and a couple of benefit concerts by a
Hill County native named Willie for the courthouse to rise again. An architectural mélange of Second Empire, Italianate and Classical styles, the structure lost none of its Victorian-era charm, even as architects were able to incorporate modern conveniences into the reconstructed building.
The phoenix-like resurrection almost didn’t happen, says Betty Lowrance, a retired Hill College English instructor and longtime resident. “While it was still burning, some county officials already were talking about razing what was left and replacing it with something modern and more convenient,” she recalled over lunch this week. “Little gray-haired ladies” vowing to march in the streets put a stop to that kind of talk.
Lowrance’s husband Will, a former Hillsboro mayor and retired high school principal, points out that at the time of the fire, his hometown already was in the grip of a decadeslong decline. Ironically, the loss of the courthouse served as a catalyst for the town’s revival, a process that’s picked up speed the last couple of years.
Losing ‘sense of identity’
Founded in 1851, Hillsboro was a western town before the Civil War. “We were not built as a community of churches,” Will says, laughing. “We were a community of saloons, 16 at one time.”
After the war, farming families from the devastated South settled in Central Texas, and it wasn’t long before Hill County vied with Ellis and Williamson counties as the largest cotton producer in the state. With cotton gins, cotton compresses, cotton warehouses, cotton-seed oil mills and related businesses, Hillsboro relied almost exclusively on the bounty of the blackland prairie.
It didn’t last. As with so many other small Texas towns, the Depression, World War II and the prolonged drought of the 1950s conspired to eat away at Hillsboro’s prosperity. “We lost our sense of identity, so after World War II we had no idea who we were,” Will says.
“The drought was the death knell,” Betty recalled. She remembers the first time Will brought her to Hillsboro in 1964. “It was so dried up, I thought, ‘Oh, my goodness! What sort of place is this?’ ”
Preserving history
Nearly three decades later, in the wake of the fire, the Lowrances and other residents were ready to face up to that question. They resolved to restore not just the beloved courthouse but also their community’s purpose.
They focused on their town’s strengths, including its history. In the 1980s, Hillsboro had been an original participant in the state’s Main Street program, designed to encourage efforts to preserve and repurpose historic downtown structures. After the fire, they doubled down on Main Street assistance. These days, Hillsboro, population 8,400, is home to a couple of historic districts and attractively preserved historic buildings on the courthouse square.
“It used to be lonely downtown on the weekend,” Betty Lowrance said. “Now you not only see people who’ve stopped to tour the courthouse, but they’re walking around the square, taking pictures, trying our restaurants.”
Not everything’s peachy, of course. Some locals are beginning to complain about traffic, and, strangely enough, Metroplex residents with no ties to Hillsboro have been buying up local cemetery lots. Death is more expensive in Big D and environs than in small towns.
Ronnie and Paula Earp (pronounced Arp) aren’t complaining. The couple occupies one of those historic buildings, across Waco Street from the courthouse. Twenty years ago, they were living in the Metroplex and dreaming about moving to a small town and living in a downtown building, maybe in Weatherford or Granbury or Waxahachie. Then they discovered Hillsboro.
Restoring buildings
The Earps bought a two-story office building, circa 1884, and opened A Tiskit A Taskit, a combination antique store, sandwich shop and oldfashioned soda fountain. They live upstairs in a four-bedroom dwelling they’ve fashioned out of 3,100 square feet of original office space.
“This town just slowly started to wake up,” Ronnie told me, mentioning several new businesses that have opened in the past year. Other new residents have been inspired by Chip and Joanna Gaines, cable TV’s wildly popular “Fixer-Uppers” from nearby Waco. Newcomers from California and elsewhere are moving in and restoring Hillsboro’s graceful older homes.
These days, the 68-year-old former Denton car salesman peddles not cars but his seductive homemade ice cream, a dozen or so flavors he switches in and out when the mood strikes him. (In the spirit of participatory journalism, I sampled nine. My favorite was red velvet, although I feel obligated to go back for adults-only bourbon pecan when Earp gets it perfected.)
‘Bringing new blood’
Next door, Kim Hargrove opened Rustic Charm a year and a half ago in a 120-year-old building. It’s a gift shop, craft furniture store and soon-to-be wine bar. She and her husband Justin, like the Earps, live upstairs with their two home-schooled teenagers.
The Hargroves, in their late 30s, lived in San Antonio for eight years, where Justin worked for AT&T before the couple moved to Hillsboro and he went to work for his dad’s construction business. In a few weeks he’ll open The Plaid Turtle, a handsome brew house next door to his wife’s shop, where he’ll be serving 32 craft beers, wings and other bar snacks.
“The guys can come in and watch sports on TV in his place, while the girls come over here,” Kim Hargrove told me.
“They’re bringing new blood to Hillsboro,” Will Lowrance said. “It’s their vision and their willingness to come in here and be part of the town that’s making the future happen. Their contagion has spread to us old duffers.”