James Wahrenberger and Albert H. Beckman of San Antonio designed this striking two-story brick courthouse, now covered in stucco, with Italianate and Romanesque features. The building’s central block is five bays wide and nearly cubic. Instead of the typical central entrance, there are two doors, one on each side of the projecting central three bays and each with a wooden porch with Eastlake ornament. Tall, narrow round-arched windows have shawl lintels, and the cornice has a corbel table. Flanking the central volume are two lower polygonal units. A tall mansard-domed cupola includes a four-faced clock and a crow’s nest balustrade.
The courthouse is located on the southwest corner of a city block. A new brick courthouse (1979, Barton D. Riley and Associates) was built on the northwest corner, facing Quarry Street. Maverick County sought funds from the Texas Historic Courthouse Preservation Program to restore the 1885 courthouse, but because only active courthouses are eligible, county officials declared the 1979 building the annex and the 1885 building the official courthouse.
The two-story Maverick County Jail (1885), behind the courthouse, lost its crenellated cornice in the 1920s and acquired a deeply molded modernist portal.