Facelifts for Texas courthouses.

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Do you remember as a child, a trip to the county seat and a visit to the courthouse? Do you recall gawking at the broad staircases, high ceilings and imposing courtrooms and wondering what happened in such an important building?

Often the courthouses were from a different era. And some were built as part of the New Deal to provide jobs for unemployed miners, builders and laborers. Others were built to accommodate horses and buggies.

Texas has a model courthouse renovation program that other states are looking at as they consider whether to restore or replace the old buildings. The Lone Star State pays up to 85 percent of the renovation costs, and counties pay the rest for courthouses 50 years old and older. Texas has 45 renovations either under way or being designed.

The state commission in charge of the renovations has a Web site (www.thc.state.tx.us/courthouses/chthcpp.html) that explains how to begin a courthouse project, including what should be in the master plan and how to choose preservation consultants.

Kentucky lawyers, preservationists and merchants are urging their state to look at a similar program. The state created a unified court system in the 1970s that handed responsibility for judicial services to the Administrative Office of the Courts. The counties and the administrative office share courthouses, but are not always the best of neighbors, according to Garlan VanHook, general manager of facilities for the state court system. The office is replacing obsolete courthouses with...

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