Stephenville’s courthouse square is punctuated on each side with white limestone-faced buildings that visually harmonize with the courthouse. The brick streets, notable throughout the region, were installed in 1929 using high-quality bricks manufactured in Thurber (Erath County) and paid for by abutting property owners.
J. Riely Gordon designed two stone-clad buildings on the square: the former First National Bank (1889), the town’s first bank, at 198 S. Belknap Street and the former Crow’s Opera House (1892), now the Stephenville Chamber of Commerce, at 187 W. Washington Street. The two-story bank uses a large Richardsonian Romanesque arch on one side to amplify the bank’s presence on the square, and the chamfered corner’s portico, added in 1902 after a fire in 1897, is carried on two pairs of marble Ionic columns supporting a pediment. A round turret with a spire rises from the second floor.
For Crow’s Opera House, which is on a two-lot site, Gordon used a three-part arched window centered on the second story to unify the facade. The building housed the Erath County National Bank in the first-floor corner alongside a store with cast-iron pilasters. The performance space, which could seat four hundred, was located on the second floor. A bartizan marks the building’s corner.
In dramatic contrast to Gordon’s rock-faced buildings is the former Farmers National Bank (c. 1907; 181 S. Graham Avenue) with its finely dressed stonework and temple front. Four fluted Corinthian columns support a full entablature and a pediment. The entire portico is bracketed by projecting rusticated walls to contrast with the temple front.