Dedicated in June 1973, the Morris County Courthouse in Daingerfield, Texas, is a modern brick-and-concrete building that followed the county's original 1882 courthouse, now used for office space.
The courthouse is a practical building that serves its purposes well, said Sherry Ray, secretary to the county judge.
The architectural firm Pierce, Pace and Associates designed the building, one of four Texas county courthouses it designed between 1964 and 1973, according to 254texascourthouses.net. The others are in Baylor, Culberson and Zavala counties.
The courthouse originally had a flat roof. A pitched roof and gables were later added, presumably to improve drainage.
It houses the offices of the county clerk, treasurer, auditor, tax assessor/collector, district clerk, district attorney, county judge and commissioners court.
Also in the building are a district court, Department of Public Safety driver's license office, a veterans' services office and adult and juvenile probation offices.
Morris County was demarked from Titus County on March 13, 1875, and probably named for William W. Morris, a 19th-century district judge and state legislator from the area, according to the Handbook of Texas Online. The county was organized on May 12, 1875, with Daingerfield as the county seat.
With a surface area of 164,000 acres, Morris County is one of the smallest counties in the state. The census counted 13,200 people living in Morris County in 1990, 13,048 in 2000 and 12,743 in 2014.
The Morris County Courthouse is at 500 Broadnax St. in Daingerfield.