We started off the morning with a paddle at Caddo Lake State Park - fabulous paddling amongst the cypress knees and Spanish moss! We had a picnic lunch there before hitting the courthouse circuit again!
HUH???
Old Boston jail, 1891, used until 1984. And yes, it's Old Boston. There's also Boston, and New Boston, which made it REALLY hard to find the current courthouse.
New Boston courthouse, 1985.
Architect: Thomas & Embeton Assoc.
Ugh. It took us way too long to find this one - we even asked at the Post Office! We learned the hard way that there's an Old Boston, Boston, and New Boston, in order from south to north.
Clarksville courthouse, 1885.
Architect: William H. Wilson
One of the oldest still in use!
This is a nice little town.
Clarksville jail.
Paris courthouse, 1917, and jail.
Architect: Barry & Smith and Sanguinet & Staats
This is a fun town!
Hee hee! Paris, Tennessee, built an Eiffel Tower that was 60 feet tall, so Paris, Texas, had to build theirs 65 feet tall. Paris, Tennessee, replaced theirs with one that was 70 feet tall, so Paris, Texas, added the cowboy hat to top the Tennesseean Tower. It was the tallest in the US, for one year, until Las Vegas built a 540-foot replica on the Strip.
Cooper courthouse, 1941.
Architect: Hoke Smith
We went to the grocery story looking for wine and discovered that this is a dry county. So, no additional wine with dinner at Cooper Lake State Park (we had some, just not a lot). Cooper Lake SP was lovely, although the lake was low. We had a nice site at the South Sulphur Unit. Mac & cheese and broccoli for dinner. More hangman, more coyotes.
Aaron's comments: Camping in Cooper Lake State Park, South Sulphur Unit. Today was a great day. Awoke early at Buckhorn and walked a bit. I stood on the pier there, and watched mist rise off Lake O' The Pines. There was a profusion of woodpeckers and other birds. We had our oatmeal and packed quickly. We went to....
CADDO LAKE STATE PARK AND KAYAKED!!!
It was that cool. Kobi came along as a passenger. The place is a bayou straight out of Louisiana...We kayaked among giant cypress growing right out of the water. We had a limited amount of time so we plan on going back with both more time and a map of the entire lake. There are a lot of canoe / kayak trails there. After a picnic at Caddo, we left for our northeasternmost courthouse.
It was New Boston. Don't bother. They likely moved the town and in the process it lost its character. The old town is a suburb of the new town which is a random assortment of crap along the interstate. The courthouse is literally in front of the Walmart. It took us a half hour to find though since they have two streets named Bowie, in a town of less than ten thousand.
Leaving New Boston, we struck off west in search of Clarksville and the (one of the) oldest county seats in Texas. Northwest Texas is bland after the eastern regions. It is proper farm land with rolling hills and ruler-straight highways. Clarksville is a cute town. It is quite past its prime but turning back the clock it is easy to see it being a bustling place with settlers arriving from the U.S. The town square is not entirely dead, and they have made some improvements even. The courthouse is made of local yellow stone blocks. Stylistically it is reminiscent of the house in Lockhart. But yellow. I remarked that in its day it must have been quite grand with such big blocks of stone, but now the regularity of the lines is a bit too similar to those of cement blocks.
Leaving Clarksville, we landed in Paris but not before traveling through Detroit, Reno, and narrowly missing Bogota. Paris was grand. It has a lovely square. The courthouse is big and unlike any we have seen yet. Look into its history, it is cool. On the way out of town we drove by a bluegrass bar we want to return to, and we stopped to look at the Eiffel Tower. Something over 70' tall and sporting a cowboy hat. :)
The last house of the day was in Cooper. Not much of a house, but a neat square and a dry county. The most memorable feature of Cooper was the red brick used in the square. A huge expanse of it is laid out. Very cool.
We now sit here at our campsite, drinking wine and planning for tomorrow, which I will tell you about then.
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