You may be wondering why this room features a vault door. The answer is straightforward: juries deliberating a defendant’s fate would be locked in this room, both with the vault door and by shutting the metal window covers. In the era when this Historic Courthouse was built, the privacy and security of the jury was regarded as sacred and inviolable. Imagine discussing the facts of a trial with other jurors in this room with the vault door and windows shut for hours at a time!

     The books and bookshelves in this room are not original, but were installed during the courthouse restoration when this area served as the Law Library. However, one of these books – the third from the right on the middle row to the left of the vault door at the back of the room – can be pulled to reveal…just kidding! That said, the secondary vault at the back of the room remains in use today for important Auditing Department and Treasurer’s documents. Today, the old Jury Room is used for Executive Sessions of the Commissioners’ Court, when commissioners meet privately with legal representation, or for media interviews.