Donley County Historical
Markers
Clarendon Motor Company
Building, Clarendon
(photo)
Narrative: The Clarendon Motor Company Building (1924) is a 2-
story stucco, Mission Revival-influenced automobile dealership
with a rectangular plan and built-up roof. Red tile canopies
cover major entrances to the primary building while recessed
medallions and tiles decorate the upper facade. The building is
located in the commercial center of the small town of Clarendon,
Donley County, Texas, at the corner of Third and Sully Streets.
The noteworthy element of the facade is the Alamo-style parapet
that punctuates the front (east) facade. Two tiled- roof kiosks
stand near the street, one on the east and another on the south
facades. Both kiosks are Contributing structures on the site. The
property retains a high degree of integrity.
The Clarendon Motor Company Building (1924) building is
constructed of brick and clad with stucco. Decorative glazed tile
and red clay tiles provide ornamentation. The roof is flat and
built-up with rolled asphalt covering. Exterior walls are painted
a buff color. Red tiled canopies protect entrances to the primary
building. Distinctive architectural elements include the
Mission-influenced roof parapet with coping, recessed medallions
above each bay, and decorative brown patterned tiles. The
built-up roof is entirely obscured by the parapets.
The building is on the northwest corner of the intersection of
Third and Sully Streets. The principal (east) facade is
symmetrical with a central door flanked by two large bays,
originally designed for viewing automobiles inside.(Photo 1)
Above the door and bays are tile roofed hoods and recessed
medallions. Small brown patterned tiles in both horizontal and
vertical linear patterns further ornament the facade. The former
service area shares a wall with the showroom to the north and is
now utilized as a parking garage for the building. It is a
1-story building featuring two garage door bays and an identical
roof parapet and complementary tile detailing to the principal
building.
The south facade of the building is comprised of the 2- story
principal building to the east and a 1-story former auto parts
department to the west.(Photo 2) The principal building's south
facade is comprised of an entry door protected by a tile-roofed
hood, a large bay to the right, and three additional windows to
the left. More recessed medallions, linear tile work, and the
Mission-influenced parapet echo the front facade of the building.
The former parts department (now additional office space) to the
left once featured a garage bay flanked by three large, multi-
paned windows. As part of the adaptive use of the building, the
garage bay was converted into a second, handicapped- accessible
entrance utilizing design details from other areas of the
building. A new ramp for the disabled was added. The landscaping
and sidewalk adjacent to the south facade were improved
considerably as part of the rehabilitation.
The plan of the entire complex is rectangular. The original
showroom portion and parts department together comprised a long,
rectangular footprint of equal size to the service area to the
north (see floor plans). Presently, the showroom and parts areas
have been modified into space for a contemporary office building
which includes a reception area, offices, conference rooms, and
other rooms (see floor plans). Originally, a second floor balcony
looked over the showroom (see floor plans). The stairs were
relocated to the center of the plan, the balcony enlarged, and
two offices created for the owners (see floor plan).
The floors are of terra cotta tile and the ceiling pressed metal.
As part of the adaptive use of the interior, the second floor
balcony was enlarged into an office and work area accessed by a
new central staircase leading from the main floor (Photo 6). The
new stair retains the detailing of the original stair which had
flanked the north wall of the showroom.
As part of a rehabilitation of the structure, the original
canopied kiosks over the gasoline pumps were recreated following
the design found in historic photographs (Photos 1, 2). Both
kiosks are considered Contributing to the site. Along the south
facade, the original window boxes were retained (Photos 1,3). One
bay of the service wing's west facade, long ago widened from a
door into a car entry, was retained as is to provide access to
the newly created parking garage (see floor plans).
The Clarendon Motor Company Building, located in the town of
Clarendon, Donley County (1990 pop. 2, 316) serves both as a
reminder of the prosperity of the ranch economy around which the
town prospered in the 1920s, and also as an example of the
distinctive architectural forms adopted by the first car dealers
in this country. Thus the significance of the building is
twofold; it stands both as a symbol of the goals and aspirations
of a then growing community and also as a fine local example of
Mission Revival architecture. Contextually, the building relates
to the Texas Historical Commission's historic context Community
and Regional Development in Texas, 1690-1945. The building is
nominated to the National Register under Criterion A in the area
of Commerce and C in the area of Architecture, both at the local
level of significance.
The Clarendon Motor Company Building reflects an era in which the
town of Clarendon began to prosper. Organized as the county seat
in 1882, the town relocated five miles away to its present
location in 1887, when the railroad arrived. Henry Lewis Calhart,
a Methodist preacher and land speculator from New York, founded
Clarendon as his location for a Christian colony named for his
wife, Clara. The town is 60 miles east of Amarillo. Calhart
intended Clarendon to be a prohibition colony. All deeds of
property contained a clause forbidding the use of liquor. The
first edition of the Clarendon News (August 2, 1879) proclaimed
Clarendon's sobriety settlement" with three words:
Christianity, Education, Temperance.
Henry Calhart's Clarendon Land Investment and Agency Company
collapsed after the winter of 1886, but the community remained
intact. Donley County was organized in 1882, and a courthouse,
erected adjacent to the site of the Clarendon Motor Company
Building, was built in 1890. The Southern Kansas and Panhandle
Railroad (later called the Santa Fe Railroad) came from Topeka,
Kansas, through Oklahoma, and into the Panhandle by 1887. The
Fort Worth and Denver City Railroad, originating in Fort Worth,
reached Clarendon shortly thereafter. Now feed, barbed wire, and
supplies could be freighted from Clarendon to the neighboring
ranches rather than from Dodge City, 200 miles away. Clarendon
grew to become a significant shipping point for the railroad.
Cattle were shipped to Fort Worth and Kansas City from here.
By the 1920s, Clarendon had become the building block of the
county economy. The population of Donley County jumped from 5,284
in 1910 to 8,035 in 1920, an increase of more than 50
percent.(Fourteenth Census of the US, 1922) Further, the
population reached 10,262 in 1930, an increase of more than 23
percent from the previous decade.(Fifteenth Census of the US,
1932) Further, the population reached 10,262 in 1930, an increase
of more than 23 percent from the previous decade. Significantly,
the 1920 census recorded no urban population, while the 1930
census indicated an urban population of 2,756; this new number in
the "urban" category reflects the now-measurable
population of Clarendon itself. The commercial core of the small
community grew around Kearney Street (figure 17). In 1921,
Clarendon boasted three banks, seven grocery stores, two school
buildings, four drug stores, six churches, three restaurants, the
Pasttime theater, three hotels, a hospital, one railroad, one
newspaper, and even a college (there had once been an opera
house, too, but it had been demolished by this time). The first
school was established in Clarendon in 1878. Clarendon College
was established in 1898.
In 1920, J.W. Martin and J.T. Patman purchased lots at the corner
of Third and Sully Streets, across from the courthouse, where
they commissioned Ed Barnes, a local builder, to erect the
Clarendon Motor Company Building four years later, in 1924.
Located at the corner of Third and Sully Streets (formerly known
as Second and Jefferson Streets), the dealership was located
along the town's major thoroughfare, Highway 5 to Fort Worth.
Highway 5 supplanted an earlier highway known as the
Colorado-to-Gulf (Denver to Galveston) and in part followed the
route of the Ozark Trails (c. 1917, from Arkansas to New Mexico).
Adjacent to the building were the courthouse (built in 1890), a
funeral home, a hotel, the opera house (now demolished), an ice
plant, and other buildings (see figures 16, 17). In 1930, the men
assumed a nearby Ford dealership and changed the building to a
Chevrolet dealership. Mr. Martin died in 1936 and Mr. Patman in
1951, when the business was then sold to gentlemen named. Moffitt
and Noblett. Three years later, Earl Alderson purchased the
business and changed the name to Alderson Chevrolet, a name which
it retained until the recent adaptive use.
By 1924, when the Clarendon Motor Company was established, the
car industry had come a great distance since the first car was
run in Springfield, Massachusetts in 1893. Henry Ford's first car
in Detroit led to the founding of the Ford Motor Company in 1903.
The Model T was introduced in 1908. Ford began production with a
moving assembly line in 1913. Between 1900 and 1910, the number
of automobile sales had increased from 4,100 units to 186,000
units nationally. The 1920s brought the advent of mass marketing
of cars. Financing became available and tire design greatly
improved. Henry Ford was considered something of a folk hero.
The automobile presence in Texas grew dramatically in the first
two decades of this century. In 1903, there were fewer than fifty
automobiles in Dallas. Scarcely ten years later, there were
32,000 cars in the state of Texas. By 1902, 428,000 cars were on
Texas roads and there were 1,500 car dealers. There was one car
for every ten people in the state at this time. 1.4 million cars
traveled Texas roads in 1930. To keep up with the escalation in
car ownership in the state, the Texas legislature passed the
first registration of autos in 1907. In 1917, a highway
department was created. Between 1909 and 1913, counties issued
bonds for roads and bridges totaling $12.4 million. The Texas
Almanac for 1914 reported that Texas counties also were spending
$5 million annually to augment the bonds. 130,000 miles of public
roads covered the state as early as 1912. The Federal Highway
Act, passed in 1921, provided for national routes with expenses
to be shared by both the federal government and the state.
Another milestone occurred in 1925 when the Texas legislature
conferred upon the highway department the authority to construct
and maintain a connected system of highways. The plan required
several years to take hold.
Census records indicate that by 1930, Donley County bore a
surprisingly large number of businesses related to the automobile
industry. There were 55 individuals employed by automobile
agencies and repair shops in the county, 53 employed by
automobile factories and repair shops, and 24 working in garages.
(Neighboring counties, such as Gray and Collingsworth, reflected
similar figures).
In Main Street to Miracle Mile: American Roadside Architecture,
Chester Liebs chronicles the development of the automobile
industry and the accompanying new architectural forms that
emerged. Unlike today's automobile dealerships that feature huge
lots with a small buildings behind, early dealerships featured
prominently located showrooms complete with clearly defined
parts, including service areas. Liebs explains the newfound
importance of the architecturally interesting automobile showroom
in this era:
By the second decade of the new century, dealers began pouring
their own money into lavish new facilities. Within ten years,
fashionable showrooms were going up by the hundreds, and
auto-showroom construction had become a visual game of visual
one-upmanship. Now architectural imagery was used not just to
give credibility to fledgling companies, but also to symbolize
the power of well-established corporations and the prosperity of
successful dealers.
The Clarendon Motor Company Building was part of this nationwide
trend, serving as a deliberately distinctive architectural
statement intended to lure prospective buyers into the showroom.
Its Mission-shaped roof parapets and other design elements,
borrowed from early Hispanic motifs, are here freely adapted to
the needs of the modern commercial building. The Mission Revival
mode of architecture is utilized in another local building, the
Texas Saddlery Building (formerly Clarendon Junior High School,
1921), but the Motor Company Building possesses more refined
details and is located in the heart of downtown, allowing it to
serve as a critical architectural component of the urban fabric
of the town. Architecturally, it always has been, and remains,
one of the most important buildings in downtown Clarendon.
The composition of the building perfectly articulates the various
functions within. For example, the showroom is, appropriately, a
grander, two-story space that sets itself apart from the
secondary parts and service areas. Further, the Mission Revival
motif for the building manifests itself in several details, such
as the canopies over the gasoline pumps. The builder adeptly
continues the rhythm of the curving parapet where required, along
the service wing of the principal facade, but suspends it along
the less visible secondary parts department wing on Third Street.
The integrity of the building is excellent. The architect for the
rehabilitation conducted extensive research regarding the
original building before any work was undertaken. For example,
historic exterior and interior paint colors were investigated and
a template of the original wainscot detailwork made to guide the
rehabilitation. Much of the original hardware was refinished;
where it was missing, it was duplicated. Because the existing
doors were badly deteriorated, new ones were made to duplicate
them. The metal ceiling and quarry tile floors were left intact.
On the exterior, only badly deteriorated materials were removed
and replaced with new materials to match. Near the west end of
the south elevation, the overhead door was removed and replaced
with an entrance based upon the appearance of another opening on
the east facade shown in an historic photograph.
Today, car dealers in Clarendon have followed the nationwide
trend of establishing dealerships away from the central city
along major highways, such as Highway 287 East. The building's
role as a car dealership is over. It is fortunate that the
current owners purchased the building with a clear vision for its
adaptive use. They have systematically and carefully
rehabilitated the building as part of a larger goal of
revitalizing downtown Clarendon. Like other small communities in
the region, Clarendon has suffered in the decades since the
erosion of ranching and farming as community economic generators.
The building, rehabilitated into professional office space, may
function as an catalyst in the future revitalization of the town
center.
Historic Courthouse
Donley County Courthouse
and Jail, Clarendon
(photo)
Narrative: In Romanesque Revival style, the Donley County
Courthouse is a fine picturesque work incorporating polychromatic
masonry. Walls of the 1890 temple were St. Louis pressed brick
placed upon a base of quarry-faced ashlar, the stones of which,
according to one local historian, were taken from an earlier
courthouse. Stone was also used for the arches, lintels, and
decorative features. On the ground story cut stone was employed
for the watertable, pinnacle shafts, and lintels. The arches of
the tower base were comprised of large voussoirs with quarry
faces, wide archivolts, cut intrados, and imposts decorated with
geometrical ornamentation. These were supported by columns with
alternating courses of smooth and textured stones. A billet
terminating the wall was formed with inset bricks of contrasting
colors to create patterns of recesses, which are emphasized by
the play of light on the surface. A brick and stone fireplace on
the south facade contributes to the picturesqueness of the
asymmetrically composed massing.
Changes in the exterior of the building include the removal of
the upper section of the tower, removal of dormers and the
conical turret roof, all done in the 1930's. In addition, some of
the pinnacles have been remove and a cast iron cresting and metal
finials have been taken off the roof ridges.
The courthouse plan is unusual in Texas but conforms to
conventions followed by some other architects who worked in the
Romanesque Revival style. One entrance is emphasized by the tower
and porch. The turret contains a stairway; the windows placed in
a stepped pattern also express change in level.
On the interior of the Donley County Courthouse many of the
original finishes and furnishings are still extant. Walls were
plastered and trimmed with stained woodwork, although the wood
has now been painted. Hardwood floors are still intact, as are
the ceilings which were finished with stamped sheet metal with
intricate patterns. However, some ceilings are finished with
plaster. Original furnishings include fireplaces, courtroom
furniture, and bookcases in the judges' chambers. Beautiful
stained glass windows in arched openings and iron vault doors
with Victorian decorative features are other original details
that add to the interest of this courthouse.
The Donley County Jail is located on the northwest corner of the
public square, near the courthouse. Built on stone footings, the
walls of the jail were of Millsap and Vernon brick, completed in
1904. That same year, lightning rods, electric lights, and water
and sewage systems were installed. In 1907 porches were added to
the north and south sides. Although the utilities and other
interior features have obviously been remodeled, the exterior
still retains most of its original character.
The jail is a cubical building with stuccoed walls emphasized by
stone stringcoures. Stone was also employed for lintels over the
openings. The walls are terminated by a cornice formed with brick
corbeling. On the northeast corner of the building the walls rise
above the cornice and form a picturesque tower-like feature. This
is decorated with details resembling battlements and
machicolations--Medieval military architectural details. The use
of these stylistic features in detention facilities symbolized
strength and was common in Texas during the latter part of the
century. Located near the top were small indentations resembling
openings which added interest.
The porches were wooden. Square columns with simple capitals
supported the roofs. On the interior, as was common, the
sheriff's quarters were on the ground floor and cells were
installed on the second. The Donley County Courthouse and Jail
have architectural and governmental significance. They are fine
regional examples of nineteenth century design and have been the
focal point of county functions for three-quarters of a century.
Located in the southeast section of the Panhandle, Donley County
was created in 1876 and organized in 1882. It was named for
Stockton P. Donley, an early lawyer and Texas Supreme Court
Justice. Although containing an area of over 900 miles, in 1973
only about 4,000 people populated the county for which Clarendon
serves as the county seat.
Clarendon was originally founded in 1878 and named for Clara
Carhart, the wife of the town founder, Lewis Henry Carhart, a
Methodist minister. However, shortly thereafter a new townsite
was selected along the Fort Worth and Denver Railroad.
As was typical, provisions for county government were makeshift
during the early years. In 1882 the house of J.S. Wright was
leased for county offices and courtrooms. Subsequently, the
building was repaired and furnishings were purchased. However
some county offices were located in other buildings in Clarendon.
The arrangements were, of course, inadequate and several years
later commissioners prepared to build a new courthouse.
In 1887, after examining several sites, it was ordered that block
14 be selected as the site of a new building. Meanwhile S.T.
Martindale, and Charles Goodnight, the latter of whom was a
prominent West Texas rancher, were authorized to purchase
material and oversee the erection of a temporary courthouse.
Shortly after this building was completed, it was determined that
it was "entirely insufficient for general use and that a
new, more comfortable and commodious courthouse" was a
public necessity. It was then ordered that a new brick temple of
justice be erected at the earliest practicable date.
In 1890 another block was donated to the county and the county
clerk was ordered to publish invitations for proposals for a new
building in the Clarendon Traveler and the Dallas Morning News.
After receiving the bids, the proposal of Troutman Brothers,
contractors from Trinidad, Colorado, was accepted on plans
provided by Bulger and Rapp, architects. Construction proceeded
in a routine manner and was completed in 1891.
During the next several years the grounds were landscaped. In
1892 a board fence was built around the courthouse and in the
following year trees were planted.
An annex has been added on the south side and the courthouse
continues to serve its original functions. Embodying fine
stylistic and decorative features and still retaining
considerable original character, it is the finest surving example
of nineteenth-century architecture in the area.
Similar to the provisions for county government, the first jail
was improvised. In 1884, the purchase and repair of a powder
house to be used as a jail was authorized. Subsequently a jail
cell was purchased from the Pauly Jail Building Company.
In 1885 Charles Goodnight was appointed an agent to purchase
materials for a new jail building and to oversee construction.
However, work was delayed. Five years later officials intended to
contract a new jail at the same time as the courthouse contract,
but this effort also failed.
Finally in 1903, the Pauly Jail Building Company was asked to
furnish plans and specifications for a new facility. After
considering bids on these plans, J.A. White was awarded the
contract for $8,980. Structural iron and steel, and the cells
were purchased from Pauly Company. Early in 1904, the county
accepted the completed jail and today it continues to serve its
original function.
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