FORMER City Hall - Mexia, TX
N 31° 40.795 W 096° 28.948
14R E 738651 N 3507711
Constructed in 1927, the former Mexia City Hall building is at 101 S McKinney St, Mexia, TX. Today, it is the Mexia Civic Center.
Waymark Code: WM15TZN
Location: Texas, United States
Date Posted: 02/27/2022
Views: 1
For whatever reason, the city has since relocated to a more mundane looking building across the street, but it does appear that they still use some of the office space here. Otherwise, the auditorium is used for city events. The
Society of Architectural Historians has a little background about this beautiful building:
The Spanish Colonial Revival style of this buff brick building complex was sweeping the state in the 1920s, replacing a native heritage based on the Texas missions with a style originating in California. The large auditorium reveals Lombard influence in its loggia of five tall arched openings topped by a false gallery of arches on colonettes and a gabled parapet. The picturesque city hall on the left of the auditorium has a corner bay that rises to an octagonal tower capped with a polychrome tiled dome.
Jay C. Henry's "Architecture in Texas, 1895–1945" (p. 174) has a photo of the building along with a similar city hall that the Page Brothers designed and constructed in Sweetwater the previous year. It notes that for this one, the architects corrected a few aesthetic issues by including the tower above the city hall portion in order to provide balance with the mass of the auditorium, which otherwise might be identified alone as Regional Romanesque.
Mexia is a city in Limestone County, TX, dating to 1871. Its growth in the early 20th century was fueled -- as it were -- by discoveries of natural gas in 1912 and oil in 1920. The resulting boom from the strike at the Mexia oilfield brought the population to nearly 35,000, but today, the population is closer to 7000. Be sure to enjoy a taste of the local flavor with a snack at Jim's Krispy Fried Chicken.