By 1961, the exterior of the Dallas County Courthouse (affectionately known as “Old Red”) had been slowly eroding for years. It was not uncommon for passers-by to have to dodge bits of the sandstone building raining down on them. And inside, county workers complained of severely cramped conditions in a building that had become overcrowded. The plumbing wasn’t great, and the lack of air conditioning made summertime intolerable. The courthouse was built in 1892 and was almost 70 years old.
County commissioners agreed that a new, modern courthouse was needed, and plans were drawn up to submit to the public. The $18,500,000 “Courthouse Building Program” was enthusiastically approved by voters in a September 1961 bond election. This vision included:
- a new courts building and jail (to be erected on Commerce Street opposite the old red courthouse) which would “give space, dignity and stability to our county services”
- landscaped plazas which would “conceal useful and urgently needed underground parking areas”
- seven decentralized, permanent suburban sub-courthouses which the county would own and not have to rent
The new Dallas County Courthouse (which was renamed in 1992 to honor former City Councilman George Allen) began construction in the spring of 1963, and it was finished by the end of 1965. (Plans had changed somewhat by then, as in the intervening time there had been a presidential assassination, requiring the need to utilize one of the landscaped plaza blocks for a memorial.)
Throughout the construction of the new courthouse, heated discussions were going on about the fate of the old courthouse: what would happen to it? Commissioners refused to even discuss the question until the new courthouse was finished. One newspaper article said that this discussion hadn’t been brought up before the bond election for fear that voters wouldn’t approve it if they knew the old courthouse might be demolished when the new one opened (“County To Consider Prisoners as Yardworkers” by John Geddie, Dallas Morning News, Feb. 24, 1965). That didn’t bode well…