English: Early settler Moses L. Choate founded the town of Springfield near the Trinity River in the Texas Piney Woods in the 1830s. When Polk County was formed in 1846, Springfield was renamed Livingston, thus the courthouse was located in Livingston, Texas.

The county’s first courthouse was a $10.00, one-room log cabin built by Texas Revolutionary War veteran John English in 1846. It was built on a hill where all subsequent courthouses were built. The second courthouse was completed in 1847 and was a larger, one-story log cabin, built by James Andress, a civic leader and innkeeper. Andress moved the first courthouse down the hill and attached it to his inn where it was used as a kitchen. Later this third courthouse became a two-story structure built of brick in 1854. The extensively renovated 1854 courthouse became the county’s fourth courthouse in 1884. It was built of stone and brick with a fence around the courthouse square to keep roving livestock off the grounds.

The construction of the county’s fifth and current courthouse began in 1923. The brick and concrete courthouse was built in the Classical Revival style (also referred to as Texas Renaissance) with Beaux-Arts details such as large entrance columns, arched windows, a cross-axial floor plan and a flat roof with decorative balustrades. The courthouse was used for political and social functions and contained a community auditorium, library, post office, American Legion Hall and a jury dormitory with showers. The building in this picture was completed in 1924.