The cross-shaped plan of the four-story courthouse rises to a central tower and dome. The raised basement and first floor are clad in limestone, the upper stories are faced with buff brick, and the central bays on each side of the upper two stories are articulated with Ionic columns in antis. The overall effect is one of spare Beaux-Arts classicism. However, Prairie Style features, inside and out, reveal the hand of Charles E. Barglebaugh, the designer for Dallas-based Lang and Witchell. While with that firm, Barglebaugh also worked on the Johnson County Courthouse (WC32). His contemporary and fellow–Frank Lloyd Wright protégé George Willis, working at the time with Atlee B. Ayres in San Antonio, designed similar Prairie Style features for several South Texas courthouses. Here, the volutes of the Ionic column capitals are stylized as wrapped shapes, like cinnamon buns, interior plaster ornament drapes over columns and beams with Sullivanesque leaves and tendrils, and the art glass skylight in the rotunda has patterns resembling Arts and Crafts foliate motifs. John G. Garrett of Gainesville was supervising architect for the project. The courthouse was rehabilitated with funding from the Texas Historic Courthouse Preservation Program.
Diagonally across from the courthouse at 101 E. California Street, the former Gainesville National Bank (1882), a two-story, red brick bank structure, has an angled corner facade, accented with tan stone quoins and a scrolled pediment frontispiece.