Out of date in style when it was built, the four-story cream brick courthouse by Big Spring–based Olen Puckett is a combination of late 1930s modern classicism, with vertical stacks of windows on the end elevations and a prominent portico with deep pilasters, countered by the streamlined horizontality of the wings. Pronounced stringcourses emphasize the lateral bands of windows.
To the west of the courthouse at 318 S. Scurry Street, the 118th District State Court occupies the former U.S. Post Office (1937, Louis A. Simon, Supervising Architect of the U.S. Treasury), a Moderne design still recognizable despite closure of its street-front windows. Peter Hurd’s mural Our Visions Sweep through Eternity (1938) was executed for the post office. The two-story, red brick Federal Building and U.S. Post Office (1968, Olen Puckett) at 501 S. Main features horizontal bands of metallic solar screens shading second-floor windows.