Kaufman County was established in 1848 and named for David S. Kaufman, a member of Congress in both the Republic of Texas and the United States. The County Courthouse (1956, A. Warren Morey and McGill; 100 W. Mulberry Street) that replaced W. C. Dodson’s Second Empire building of 1887 is a modernist U-shaped composition with buff brick wings and aluminum curtain walls with gray spandrel panels.
Occupying a prominent corner site at 100 Grove Street, the former First National Bank (1908) is a tall one-story building in buff brick with a limestone pedimented portico on a rusticated base and paired Ionic columns supporting an entablature that extends around the building. An unusually tall parapet matches the ridge of the pediment. The bank’s design may be attributed to C. A. Gill and Son of Dallas, who designed the similar First National Bank (KR4) in Terrell two years earlier.
The former Citizens National Bank (1890; 114 N. Washington Street) is a two-story red brick building with a curved corner and a limestone-clad first story with round-arched entrances. The tall parapet’s multiple rows of corbeled brickwork adds a castellated effect.