Roosevelt County Courthouse

This 4-story, 1938 Art Deco style courthouse replaced a smaller courthouse on the same location. It was built to serve as a courthouse and a jail. It was partially funded with Public Works Administration (PWA) funds; the final cost for the building was $18,756. The county celebrated the completion on January 5, 1939.

The courthouse was built on the location of its predecessor, a 2-story frame construction with cement block walls. The current building is a 4-story reinforced concrete structure with Art Deco elements. The Board of Commissioners applied for a PWA grant to construct a new, updated facility. Construction for the new courthouse began in December 1937 and was completed in 1939. Robert E. Merrell was hired as the architect for the courthouse project by October 1937. The project was supervised by R.K. Erhard, employing 30-70 workers, hiring unskilled laborers from the rolls of the Federal Employment Office in Clovis.^[2]

The Roosevelt County Courthouse was built with funding assistance from the PWA from 1937-1939. It is considered one of architect Robert E. Merrell’s most famous works^[2], and stands tall in the middle of Portales as one of the town’s most eye-catching buildings. It was constructed due to the poor state of the original courthouse, which was significantly smaller and did not possess the means to function in a way that the county needed it to.

Originally the PWA bond was voted against, citing the poor economy in Roosevelt County and no one wanted to add more debt to the already tense situation. Some county leaders also noted that they may not have sufficiently communicated about the state of the original courthouse. ^[2] In the 1930’s, the original courthouse was considered a fire hazard. One advertisement advocating for citizens voting to pass the PWA bond from April of 1937 states that “the court house is the store room of your most valuable records. It is a fire trap.”^[3] There was not a safe place for county records to be stored in the old courthouse, which was changed with the installment of fireproof vaults in the new building.

The courthouse was originally set to be completed between 10 and 14 months from the start of construction. Bids on the construction of the new courthouse started in November of 1937, and the building was completed by November of 1938, when the first offices were preparing to be moved back into the building from their temporary relocations. ^[4] Immediately after finishing the project, the new courthouse was the site of celebrations, the first being a celebration of the finalization of the construction on January 5, 1939. This celebration included a basket lunch, parade, and a square dance and fiddler’s contest.^[5]

Displaying the cooperation of New Deal Agencies, a project taken on by the Works Project Administration razed the old courthouse as it was being torn down, taking what was still usable to the county fairgrounds to recycle the pieces in what are now the existing livestock show barns.^[2] In the mid-1990s, the original metal casement windows in the courthouse were replaced to ensure that the building was more climate-friendly. A glass vestibule was also added to provide handicap access to the elevator, removing the staircase that led to the third floor, which contained the jail and jailer’s residence.^[2] Now, the third floor of the courthouse contains the County Administration office, which includes the offices of the County Manager and Human Resources, among others.^[6]

1. Flynn, Kathryn A.. Public Art and Architecture in New Mexico 1933-1943: A Guide to the New Deal Legacy. Santa Fe, NM. Sunstone Press, 2012.
2. Kammer, David. "Roosevelt County Courthouse." National Register of Historic Places Registration Form. Consulting historian, June 2008. 
3. "Grow with Roosevelt County." The Portales Daily News, April 28, 1937.
4. "Few Offices Move Into Courthouse." The Portales Tribune, November 25 1938.
5. "Program for Dedication of Courthouse and Statehood Celebration." The Portales Daily News, January 3 1939.
6. Administration, Roosevelt County. Accessed June 14th 2022. https://www.rooseveltcounty.com/?page_id=811.