The rebuilt 1936 Sherman courthouse stands on the site where a 1930 mob of 5,000 burned the original building during one of Depression-era Texas's most documented episodes of racial violence
100 W Houston St, Sherman, TX 75090
Research updated June 2026
Age
All Ages
Cost
Free
Public courthouse grounds accessible without charge during business hours
Access
Wheelchair OK
Flat downtown courthouse square; paved exterior walkways
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Photos OK
Est. 1936 · Site of the 1930 Sherman Riot — May 9, 1930 mob attack and courthouse burning · George Hughes died in the courthouse vault during the mob assault · Destruction of Sherman's Black business district on Mulberry Street · No prosecutions followed the riot · 2025 historical marker — first permanent public memorial to the riot · Featured on Sherman's annual Haunted History Tour
On May 9, 1930, a mob assembled in Sherman, Texas, in response to a criminal proceeding involving George Hughes, a Black farmhand. The mob — estimated in contemporaneous accounts and subsequent historical documentation at approximately 5,000 people — stormed the Grayson County Courthouse where proceedings were being held.
Courthouse officials moved Hughes into the building's fireproof vault in an attempt to protect him. The mob set fire to the courthouse. Hughes died inside the vault as the building burned around it. The vault protected his body from the fire itself but not from what followed: after the fire, members of the mob broke into the vault, removed Hughes's body, and dragged it through the streets to the Black business district on Mulberry Street, where it was burned again.
The mob then turned on the Mulberry Street district itself, burning it to the ground. No one was ever prosecuted for any of these acts. The Texas National Guard arrived, but the destruction of the courthouse and business district was already complete.
The original Grayson County Courthouse was a total loss. A new courthouse was constructed on the same site and completed in 1936; that building stands today. For nearly a century the events were largely absent from formal public commemoration in Sherman. A historical marker campaign led by the shermanriot.org organization resulted in a marker being dedicated at the site in March 2025, marking the first permanent public memorial to the events of May 9, 1930.
Sources
The Grayson County Courthouse site's place in Sherman's dark-tourism landscape is inseparable from the events of May 9, 1930. The current 1936 building replaced a structure destroyed by mob action, and the ground-level marker dedicated in 2025 makes the historical record explicitly present for visitors approaching the building.
Sherman Main Street's annual Haunted History Tour, documented by KXII news in 2023, includes the courthouse among its featured stops. Tour materials reference a reported apparition of a rifle-carrying figure in cowboy attire observed near the building. This figure is the most specific supernatural claim associated with the courthouse site in available sources. The historical context in which this presence is presented — the 1930 riot — is explicit in the tour's framing.
The courthouse site is one of very few locations in North Texas where a formally dedicated historical marker and a documented paranormal claim occupy the same address simultaneously.
Notable Entities
The current 1936 courthouse stands on the site of the original building destroyed in the 1930 Sherman Riot. A historical marker dedicated in March 2025 commemorates the events of May 9, 1930, when a mob of 5,000 stormed and burned the courthouse. The site is also a stop on Sherman's annual Haunted History Tour, operated by Sherman Main Street.
The courthouse is featured on Sherman Main Street's annual Haunted History Tour, which includes documented local history from the courthouse site among its stops. The tour runs in October; tickets available through Eventbrite.
Every HauntBound history is researched from documented sources. We clearly separate verified historical fact from paranormal folklore.
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