{"id":920,"date":"2013-05-20T06:30:19","date_gmt":"2013-05-20T11:30:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ericsiegmund.com\/gazette\/2013\/05\/20\/130520-midlandcourthouse\/"},"modified":"2023-10-09T11:35:41","modified_gmt":"2023-10-09T16:35:41","slug":"130520-midlandcourthouse","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ericsiegmund.com\/fireant\/2013\/05\/20\/130520-midlandcourthouse\/","title":{"rendered":"The Midland County Courthouse and Illogical Architectural Sentimentality"},"content":{"rendered":"

The planned Energy Tower now has its own Wikipedia page<\/a>, so it will inevitably be built, because they can’t put anything in Wikipedia that’s misleading, right? That means that a large number (or small number or a handful or one-or-two) Midlanders will be inconsolable over the demolition of the now-vacant county courthouse occupying a full block of prime downtown real estate, citing its historical significance or some such illogical sentimentality.<\/p>\n

Don’t get me wrong. I’m all for saving\/restoring\/using truly historical structures, especially when the architecture is unique or even notable. I’m afraid that our courthouse qualifies on neither account.<\/p>\n

It was built in 1930<\/a>, and might be a candidate for protection in its original condition, but it was remodeled in the early 1970s and whatever unique qualities it may have exhibited were plastered over by a shiny new and very unremarkable fa\u00e7ade. It has all the grace and charm of a Motel 6, no offense to Motel 6 of course. It’s the\u00a0Pontiac Aztec<\/a>\u00a0of Texas courthouses.<\/p>\n

The building now stands empty, as the former tenants couldn’t wait to vacate the premises for more modern, livable, non-flooding, non-vermin-infested quarters in a high rise in another part of downtown.<\/p>\n

That’s no slam against Midland. West Texas has more than its share of unremarkable county courthouses. Jump over to this page<\/a>\u00a0and hover over the various counties and you’ll see a wide range of architecture, ranging from classic (e.g. Jeff Davis and Crockett Counties) to early modern bureaucratic (e.g. Ector and Martin Counties).<\/p>\n

In any event, a building constructed in the 70s certainly hasn’t the bona fides to compete with, say, the Cass County courthouse in Linden, Texas<\/a>, which was built in 1859 and is still in active use for its original purpose.<\/p>\n

Even if the courthouse building displayed its original architecture, given that it’s not being used for anything else and Midland has more than its share of museums and libraries, I would argue that reusing that real estate for something more attractive and practical just makes good sense. But as a 70s relic, I’ll shed no tears over its demise.<\/p>\n

\"Poster<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The planned Energy Tower now has its own Wikipedia page, so it will inevitably be built, because they can’t put anything in Wikipedia that’s misleading, right? That means that a large number (or small number or a handful or one-or-two) Midlanders will be inconsolable over the demolition of the now-vacant county courthouse occupying a full… Continue reading The Midland County Courthouse and Illogical Architectural Sentimentality<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[34,7,29],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-920","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-history","category-midland-odessa","category-west-texas","entry"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ericsiegmund.com\/fireant\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/920","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ericsiegmund.com\/fireant\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ericsiegmund.com\/fireant\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ericsiegmund.com\/fireant\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ericsiegmund.com\/fireant\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=920"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/ericsiegmund.com\/fireant\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/920\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12571,"href":"https:\/\/ericsiegmund.com\/fireant\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/920\/revisions\/12571"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ericsiegmund.com\/fireant\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=920"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ericsiegmund.com\/fireant\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=920"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ericsiegmund.com\/fireant\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=920"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}