Titus County, Texas History - Mt. Pleasant, Texas City Halls/Municipal Buildings

Mount Pleasant's 1918 City Hall

(Photo LG-0052, approx 1952-1953)

This photo was taken in approximately 1952 or 1953. By the time this photo was taken, both overhead doors had been enclosed and windows installed in them. A two story brick addition had been added to the back of the original building and the fire department was housed in the addition. A fireman lived on the second floor and the trucks were parked on steet level, as evidenced by the overhead doors opening onto North Madison Street. A police car is parked on the left side of CityHall in this photo.

It is hard to see in this photo, but a pedestrian entry door is visible immediately above the top of the police car on the left side of the photo. This door led down a hall to the Police Department, which was in the very back of the original building.

Mount Pleasant's 1918 City Hall

(Photo LG-0028, April, 2007)

After 33 years of daily use as the city's business office, the 1918 Mt. Pleasant City Hall was showing its age by late 1951. Voters had passed a $70,000 (around $600,000 in 2007 dollars) bond issue a few years before and city officials hoped to build a combination city hall and auditorium with the funds. Then reality reared its ugly head when they later learned that they couldn't even build the auditorium with the funds available, much less a city hall.

Therefore, city officials decided to use part of the bond proceeds to remodel the present City Hall inside and out. Architect Wyatt C. Hedrick was retained for the project, and he drafted a set of plans in an Art Deco design for the refurbished City Hall.

Since the job was a large one and affected the entire building, the city temporarily moved all of its offices except for the police and fire departments into a rented building at 106 West Third Street while the city hall building was being remodeled.

The entire exterior was covered in sheets of white limestone trimmed at ground level in 30" high polished black granite. Glass entrance doors were installed on the West Third and North Madison sides of the building. Art deco lights were installed on each side of the Third Street entrance, and a brushed aluminum art deco metal sign reading City Hall hung above the Third Street entrance. The sign is not shown in the above photo because it was removed after the building was sold.

The entire interior of the building was also remodeled at the same time as the exterior. Office space was rearranged to better utilize the building's space and halls were added to improve access to all parts of the building. The City Jail was also rebuilt.

When the building was complete, the Water Department was located on the ground floor to the right side of the Third Street entrance. The City Jail cells were on the first floor at the rear of the building. The two street-level windows at the far left side of the original building and to the left of the Madison Street door in this photo opened into jail cells. Two men's cells were located behind the Madison Street windows. A third man's cell and a separate women's or special isolation cell did not have a window.

The City Manager, City Secretary, and City Council Chambers were on the second floor. The public entered these offices through the door facing North Madison Street, which opened into a hallway with a stairwell leading upstairs.

The City Council Chambers were located behind the three windows above the jail. The City Manager's Office was in the front corner of the second floor. His secretary's office was on the second floor behind the second Madison Street window from the front of the building.

City accounting and business offices were also upstairs, and the second floor windows on the right of the Third Street side of the building opened into them.

Mount Pleasant's 1918 City Hall

(Photo FD-0020, approx 1936)

The City of Mount Pleasant, like any young adult getting a start in the world, suffered from tight budgets and lack of money for necessary projects like a waterworks and sewer system and other major capital outlays to fund the things required to build a town into a city. The City's leaders wisely delayed building a City Hall and Municipal Building until the City had installed necessary public services and was on a better financial footing. City Council meetings were held in the Mayor's private offices before the first City Hall was constructed.

The first Mt. Pleasant City Hall was erected in 1918, eighteen years after the city was incorporated. The new City Hall was actually a municipal building that contained city offices, the council chambers, and fire and police departments. This photo shows the building's original configuration with the Fire Department truck bays contained inside City hall facing West Third Street. Notice the overhead doors on each side of the building with the words "Fire Department" cast into the concrete above each door.

When this photo is enlarged, the windows visible in the left overhead door appear to be fixed windows. It is possible that the left door was enclosed into work or living areas.

The City had completely outgrown the 1918 City Hall by 1994. They purchased the old Mt. Pleasant Hospital and Clinic property, which covered the entire city block, and bulldozed the building to obtain space to erect a new City Hall. The current City Hall and Municipal Building was completed in 1996.

The City Hall and Municipal Building originally housed the Council Chambers, City Manager and City Secretary, accounting offices, Water Department, Municipal Judge and Corporation Court, and Police Department. The City again outgrew their space, and in 2007 purchased the property across the street from City Hall between Jefferson and Madison Street which was formerly owned by Pilgrim's Bank. The Water Department, Code Enforcement, City Engineer, and Environmental Services moved into this building.