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ANDREW HISTORY · STORY

Why every courthouse square faces the wrong way

Blame the railroad, then blame the highway. The square never moved — everything else did.

Andrew Historyyap.com/andrew-history · JUN 14, 2026 · 6 MIN READ

A Texas courthouse square was designed to be approached: four streets in, a building in the middle meant to be seen from all of them. Then the railroad arrived a half mile east, the depot became the real front door, and the square spent the next century facing a direction nobody comes from anymore.