At Home with Kayla Price 1/21

Beautiful, lost buildings of Sulphur Springs show need for gratitude

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As beautiful as Sulphur Springs is today, there was a time when we were home to even more lovely ornate and opulent buildings, one of which was designed by a famous architect. Though these buildings are gone forever, hopefully their stories will live on as part of the fabric of our community.

Just as fashions and fads change, so do the look and functionality of buildings change to accommodate modern society’s needs. Between the expense to build, the maintenance requirements, and the lack of skilled craftsmen, intricate design elements tend to be a relic of the past.

It is without doubt that those souls who have protected and preserved the buildings of yesteryear are true visionaries working for the greater good of their communities. The costs and care required to return or maintain old buildings to pristine order is daunting.

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In many cases it would be cheaper and easier to tear down old buildings and start again; and so often, that is exactly what happens. Thankfully, some of our lovely old buildings around town have been saved from the wrecking ball and can still be cherished and appreciated today.

Examples of these are the current City Hall (originally a post office, then the city library) located at 201 N. Davis and the Hopkins County Courthouse which is the jewel of the square. But these were not the only gorgeous gems that Sulphur Springs had to offer. My favorites of our lost buildings, of which I am aware, are the Carnegie Library and the First National Bank building.

Carnegie Libraries were built around the United States with money donated by Andrew Carnegie in an effort to make educational resources available to the masses. Sulphur Springs was lucky to have one of these structures. The Carnegie donation was made on April 10, 1909, and inspired citizens to make pledges of annual donations to assist in funding the library.

The amount of the Carnegie donation was shown in the First Biennial Report of the Texas Library and Historical Commission, published in 1911, to have been $12,500. Other sources show $12,000 as the amount of the grant, while the February 26, 1909, issue of The Sulphur Springs Gazette stated a $10,000 grant had been offered. The building was completed in 1910 but has since been razed.

This beautiful building was home of the First National Bank of Sulphur Springs, later the Sulphur Springs State Bank.

Another view of the First National Bank in approximately 1909.

J. Gordon Reilly was a nationally prominent architect who designed such important and well-known structures as the Ellis County Courthouse located in Waxahachie, Texas, as well as the Hopkins County Courthouse pictured at the top of this article.

The First National Bank building of Sulphur Springs was designed by J. Gordon Reilly and stood opposite the Hopkins County Courthouse on the corner of Church and Jefferson until it was razed.

Notice the engraving under the bank sign.

Other historical buildings that are now gone forever include:

This 1919 postcard shows Sulphur Springs City Hall and the Fire Station.

This is the original building that housed the City National Bank. The postcard is dated 1916. Notice at all the ornate trim. The building was razed in 1968 in order to build a new bank building.

The Sulphur Springs Sanitarium, which we would now call the hospital, boasted a sour water well located under the gazebo. The building is interesting, but more importantly, we have lost our sulfur wells.

The City Auditorium was located at the city park, but it has been razed.
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There are two schools of thought on the preservation of old buildings: Some folks believe that a building should be maintained as it was built and that any current occupants should work around that structure. Others think that as long as a building is preserved, walls can be moved, colors changed, etc., so that the building is updated to fill current needs.

To me, the Hopkins County Courthouse leans toward the first ideology and the Sulphur Springs City Halls leans toward the second.For both buildings, the balance that has been found between two schools of thought are allowing these structures to remain as icons of the community.

Through the years, many downtown buildings have been razed, collapsed, or burned. Buildings such as the Opera House, the jail, the original courthouse, old schools and college buildings are rarely mentioned, much less seen in photographs. Maybe their usefulness had gone, making it okay to lose them.

For the structures that have survived and been reinvented and repurposed, we should be thankful.

Read more: https://kaylaprice.com/

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Contributed by Kayla Price. All photos sourced from the Kayla Price collection and the intellectual property therein belongs to original owners, except where it has entered into the public domain. 

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