Voelcker and Dixon of Wichita Falls designed eleven courthouses in Texas between 1928 and 1941 in various modern styles. The stepped massing here was influenced by Bertram Grosvenor Goodhue’s Nebraska State Capitol (1920–1932) in Lincoln. The abstract, architectonic figures of Justice and Mercy that emerge from piers flanking the entrances facing Richards and Backus streets are derived from sculptor Lee Lawrie’s work at the Nebraska capitol, as are the eagles wrapping the building’s corners. The courthouse rises above a raised basement (the basement floor was built on natural grade, with the site built up around it) and steps up from two to four stories, giving it the ziggurat massing that was a common compositional formula in the 1930s. The interlocking masses of various heights are more deeply modeled at this courthouse than others built during the 1930s in Texas.
Several blocks west, the house (1896) at 1314 Easly Street was built by Joe Gober, the first Cottle County sheriff. The one-story house’s milled lumber and jigsaw trim were carted overland from the nearest railroads at Childress and Quanah at a time when most townsfolk still lived in dugouts.