The Best Courthouse: From the Best of East Texas by Bob Bowman of Lufkin

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From: The Best of East Texas, by Bob Bowman of Lufkin.
(The fifth printing in 1980 - Lufkin Printing Company)

Someone once described the architecture of the Red River Courthouse at 
Clarksville as Late 19th Century Debatable.  Some call it Victorian, some 
Gothic.  Buck Schiwetz, the noted painter of Texas Courthouses, insists that 
it is Italian Renaissance.  And Frank Tolbert of the Dallas Morning News says 
it looks like a German Castle.

Regardless of its design, the old courthouse is still basically sound and 
Clarksville's residents have made it clear on more than one occasion they 
don't want it torn down and replaced by another building.

Built in 1885, the courthouse boasts turrets and buttresses of mellow yellow 
stone cut from a quarry near Honey Grove.

Clarksville itself goes back to 1833 and was named for James Clark, who also 
established the first Red River town of Jonesborough (now vanished).  The 
county, one of the 23 original counties created by the Republic of Texas in 
1836, had four other temporary courthouses, but for all practical; purposes 
Clarksville has always been The Place.

The towns courthouse clock, known affectionately as Old Red, ticked from 2:30 
P.M. on May 27, 1885, until developing operating troubles and was electrified 
in 1961.  This saved the janitor 30 minutes of hard winding once a week.  But 
four months later, at 4:35 on a June morning, Old Red started striking and 
struck her bells 120 times before somebody pulled the plug.

Clarksville people still talk about the night it got later that it ever has 
been.