Concho County's first permanent courthouse was built in 1886 to replace crude early structures. Its architects were the brothers F.E. and Oscar Ruffini, who also planned and constructed the first main building at the University of Texas. F.E. Ruffini lived only long enough to draw plans for the courthouse, and his brother completed it. The building's architecture is French Second Empire, and its use of rusticated stone from a quarry only a few miles away is unusual in that style.