One of Voelcker and Dixon’s most robust Beaux-Arts classical designs, this three-story limestone courthouse has a monumental row of free-standing fluted Ionic columns across the second and third floors bracketed by solid end bays. The ground floor, over a raised basement, has articulated stone coursing.
Few of the many ornate facades that once lined the courthouse square survive in their original form. One is the W. T. Dickey Building (1901) at 1716 Main Street, with a prominent cornice and front gable clad in pressed metal manufactured by Mesker Brothers of St. Louis. On the east side of the square at 1717 Cumberland Street, the Plaza Theater (1953, Jack Corgan and Associates), a modernist design that retains its marquee and graphics, is still in operation.
A block west of the square, Shepard and Wiser of Kansas City designed the five-story, red brick, Georgian Revival Wilbarger Hotel (1927; 1726 Fannin Street), built at the apex of Vernon’s urban aspirations. The hotel was part of Amarillo hotel executive Ernest O. Thompson’s North Texas chain of hotels. The two-story Montgomery Ward Building (1928) opposite at 1725 Fannin has the company’s standard design of a cream terra-cotta facade with green tile accents and the bas-relief figure of Progress in the parapet.