Mason mourns loss of historic courthouse
MASON — Years ago, Mason’s favorite son — with a little help from Walt Disney — made youngsters cry. Fred Gipson, born on a farm near Mason in 1908 and a resident of the area off and on throughout his life, was the author of “Old Yeller,” the young-adult classic about a loyal and affectionate dog that looked after a frontier Hill Country family in the 1860s. When Old Yeller got into a tussle with a rabid wolf and had to be put down, kids across the country shed tears.
Some of those baby boomers, senior citizens today, may have watched Disney’s “Old Yeller” in Mason’s historic Odeon Theater on the picturesque courthouse square, where the movie had a special premiere in 1957. If they’ve maintained ties to their Hill Country hometown, they’re likely shedding tears again after what happened on that square the night of Feb. 4. A local resident now in custody is accused of breaking into the historic Mason County Courthouse, splashing an accelerant (probably gasoline) over carpets and dry, old wooden floors and setting
the building ablaze. Only the blackened sandstone walls and Doric columns remain standing.
‘We cried that night’
Brent and Monica Hinckley watched in horror as the beautiful, old building burned. Thirty years ago, they had abandoned Dallas for this quaint town 42 miles northwest of Fredericksburg, looking for a place to raise their children in a small-town atmosphere. They’ve never regretted the move. The couple ran an old-fashioned dime store on the square for 20 years, and for 15 years Brent served as mayor, his term ending just a few weeks ago. These days, he and Monica run the Red Door Bed & Breakfast in a historic building across the street from the courthouse. They also live in the building, Mason’s only downtown residents.
Sirens and the brightorange glow reflected through the front windows woke them. Seeing the dome, clock tower and third floor collapse, realizing there was nothing they could do to help firefighters from around the county, they wrapped themselves in a blanket, sat on a deck upstairs and watched the building die.
“It was like the death of a loved one,” Brent told me.
It reminded Monica of the fire scene in “Gone With the Wind.” “It’s so depressing, it’s horrible,” she said. “To know the people, the history.”
“I told a reporter from Texas Highways that rural men don’t tend to cry,” Brent said. “We cried that night.”
Rebuilding effort
Jerry Bearden grew up in Brady and Colorado City, but he’s lived in Mason since 1969. His sentiments echoed the Hinckleys. “Cowboys don’t cry, but judges do,” he told me last week in a deep-voiced drawl.
Bearden should know. He has been a cowboy most of his life and Mason County judge for 18 years.
Now he’s heading up the effort to determine whether the venerable courthouse can be rebuilt.
For the past several years, Texas Supreme Court Justice Jeff Boyd has been on a mission to photograph himself in or around every one of the state’s 254 courthouses. He’s on hold at county 224, he told me last week, because he was running for reelection last fall and because of the pandemic. Like most Texans, Boyd is drawn to the classical structures with their brick and stone towers, ornate cupolas and stately domes. They’re still in use across Texas, in places like Hallettsville (Lavaca County), Waxahachie (Ellis County), La Grange (Fayette County), Marfa (Presidio County), Wharton (Wharton County), Houston (Harris County) and, until a few days ago, Mason (Mason County). Texas, not surprisingly, has more historic courthouses than any other state.
“I would guess that most Austinites couldn’t tell you where the Travis County Courthouse is, but when you go to these smaller towns, you realize that the courthouse is still the heart of the community,” Boyd said.
That’s certainly the case in Mason, where every road into and out of town veers past the courthouse. “The courthouse lawn is our front yard,” Brent Hinckley said.
The courthouse square has been the site of an annual Mason County Roundup every July since 1958, sort of a combination reunion, parade and picnic. The courthouse itself is the centerpiece of Mason’s annual “Light Up the Town” event. Youngsters hunt Easter eggs on the lawn and visit Santa Claus at Christmas. There’s an Old Yeller Days parade and an Old Yeller look-alike contest in September.
And now that centerpiece is a blackened shell, a chain-link security fence keeping people out. “That man (the arsonist) tore the heart out of this community,” Bearden said.
Civic pride
The courthouse as town centerpiece is exactly what early Texans had in mind when they commissioned structures like Mason County’s, built in 1909 after two predecessors burned. In the latter years of the 19th century and the early years of the 20th, the courthouse was a symbol of civic pride. A tangible manifestation of self-governance, it had to be dignified and stately.
And so it was in Mason. The county hired a prominent courthouse architect named Edward C. Hosford, a Georgia native who had designed government buildings in Florida, Georgia and Texas. Hosford drew up a Beaux Arts-style building featuring twostory columns, a center dome and a clock tower. The handsome structure cost the county $39,796.
Another ray of hope
Rebuilding will cost several million, if rebuilding is even possible. The county has engaged an Austin architecture firm and is working with structural engineers and the Texas Historical Commission to determine whether the four walls are intact enough to remain standing. Bearden said he’ll know the answer in about a month.
Fortunately for Mason County, the courthouse had been undergoing major restoration funded by the Texas Historical Commission, so all the court records and historic county materials were moved last year to other buildings, where they remain safely in storage. County employees also relocated.
Another ray of hope rests in a courthouse nearly 200 miles to the east, in Hillsboro. In 1993, an electrical short on New Year’s night reduced the Hill County Courthouse, 102 years old at the time, to four limestone walls and a pile of blackened rubble. The building’s iconic 70foot-tall bell tower collapsed, and its 1,525-pound bell crashed through the roof, coming to rest in a courtroom. Unlike in Mason, county records were lost forever.
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. A 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. If you take the Hillsboro exit off I-35 and drive through downtown Hillsboro today, you would never know the beautiful building in the heart of town burned to the ground nearly three decades ago.
‘Hard-headed Germans’
Back in Mason, Monica Hinckley is hopeful. “In the end, our town is extremely resilient,” she said. “The people here are hard-headed Germans, and when they decide to do something, you’re not going to get in the way.”
I didn’t think of it when I was talking to the Hinckleys, but later I flashed back to a long-ago birthday party at Waco’s 25th Street Theater, Old Yeller on the screen. Watching the dog go down, I remember stifling a sob. Embarrassed, I glanced at my buddies on either side of me and saw tears glistening on their cheeks, as well.
Of course, the movie doesn’t end with Old Yeller’s demise. A lively, yellow puppy, one of Old Yeller’s, squirms his way into the heart of the older dog’s Hill Country family. Maybe that pup can be the Mason County mascot these days, a symbol of hope and new beginnings for a Texas county needing both.