Hay look these pices fit togeather!

The courthouse in Roberts county was built in 1913 with plans drawn by Elmer George Withers an architect originally working in Stamford Texas a town fairly close by. There are no records of him attending any school of architecture so it supposed he learned his trade either thru correspondence or apprenticeship. He later set up a Fort Worth office and became rather successful. There is said to be a twin of this courthouse in Marion County however there is no ornamental plaster in that courthouse. It is a shame because it would have been a big help if it was a total twin. We could have copied the elements from that courthouse instead of having to piece together these scrip fragments and interject the design.

Jhonny Langer of Source Design Studio (http://www.sourcehistory.com/) did a paint survey earlier in the year to determine the paint scheme and he did some preliminary design work trying to determine what was the original plaster design. He is a great source of historical designs and I trust his input probably more than anyone I have ever worked with. However after looking closely at the pieces my Son and I found one piece that fit together with another piece. Then after looking some more searching again another piece then fit to another. After 8 hours of studying the plaster pieces we had 4 pieces that fit together and we began to formulate a different design.

We found evidence of paint drips that hung on the surface which after studying the locations of the drips and their orientation meant that this piece might have been at a totally different spot on the design. We took pictures and wrote a short disruption and sent them off to Jjonny and are waiting for his input. If he agrees that this might have been the orientation then we will proceed to redraw the layout of the design and submit it to the architect and the Texas Historical Commission with our explanation of why we thing the ornamentation is designed the way we think it was. This can be a very contentious issue and care will need to be taken to insure we are right before we submit. I hate it when someone comes up with something I overlooked that changes the whole thing. But that is why it is important to have a different professional people studying the issue.

This is going to me more interesting than I first expected. But this is something that both my son and I love. Just hope it doesn’t drag on and on until a decision on the design is established.