This is not a commercial website; these photos are simply a hobby of mine.
Higher resolution images are available, please contact me for further information.

Born in the heart of East Texas I can still remember the old courthouse on the square in Tyler. Now, not only has the beautiful old courthouse been torn down, the square has been dissected and a "modern" style concrete utilitarian bunker has been erected in its place.

I've always been fascinated by the Victorian era structures but my photographic interest in the old courthouses started in 2005. My wife Trena and I made a Texas wine country and courthouse tour covering over 20 wineries and courthouses in the summer of 2005. Most of pictures have come from such dual purpose trips while going to or coming from somewhere. However some excursions were made specifically to take pictures. Luckily a few have involved our close friends Dave & Myrt which made the trip even better. In fact Dave and I stumbled onto the best chicken fried steak either of us have had in several years over in Anahuac.

My first SLR, a Zeiss Icarex, came from Germany while my sister and her husband were stationed there. That started my first real interest in photography and involved developing and enlarging my own film. I really liked taking night time exposures from atop the old Humble building downtown and off the end of the runway at Hobby airport. The earliest of these courthouse photos were taken with our first digital camera, a Kodak 3900 3 megapixel camera. I purchased a Canon S2 last year and have been extremely happy with it, especially the 12x zoom feature.

While my original intent was to only visit the late 1800 Victorian style edifices others have been included that were along the way. Most of them make a good case for restoring the old courthouses! There are no plans to visit all 254 counties but I still plan to add some of the courthouses around San Antonio and hope to have the opportunity this spring.


Enjoy,
Steve N Stephens - January 2007