Waxahachie Texas, Ellis County courthouse gargoyles. (original) (raw)

"The building's beauty and symmetry is stunning from afar, but it is the intricate sculptures that grace the courthouse's exterior that have attracted the most attention and speculation.

A series of intricately carves stone faces grace each of the four porch capitals, ranging from the sublime to the grotesque. Legend has it that German itinerant stone carver Harry Herley fell in love with the local girl Mabel Frame, whose grandmother operated the boarding house where he resided while sculpting all the courthouse's exterior ornamentation. Herley loved Mabel Frame dearly, the myth proclaims, but she did not return his love. The beautiful likenesses of Mabel portrayed on the stone porticoes soon turned into demons. Time and the dwindling love affair are portrayed as one walks around the courthouse.

While a lovely legend, there is no factual basis for the story. Harry Herley is credited with being the master carver for the Waxahachie project, but more than likely, he carved only a portion of the portraits and supervised several other carvers, all of whom worked for Theodore Beilharz, a master stone carver in Dallas.

The carvings were probably made in Dallas at the Beilharz yard and shop and shipped to Waxahachie in their finished condition, ready to mount.

No connection between Herley and Frame can be documented and soon after the carvings were finished, Herley married a woman named Minnie Hodges. Despite the lack of evidence, the legend regarding the courthouse portraits survives and adds an extra element of romance and intrigue to an already significant architectural landmark." - Kelly McMichael Stott - Waxahachie: Where Cotton Reigned King, Arcadia Publishing, 2002.