The original Cass County Courthouse was built on the present courthouse site as a two-story wood structure and court opened in 1852. The man most responsible for conceiving and realizing the courthouse was a true Texas pioneer, Charles Ames. Ames arrived from Massachusetts in the 1830’s to begin trading among Indians, Mexicans, and early Anglo settlers. He ultimately rose to become Chief Justice of the county – flourishing during a time when Texas was raw and East Texas was especially lawless deriving from its early “neutral ground” designation as a buffer zone between the Louisiana Purchase (US) and New Spain. In May 1859, construction began on the Classical Greek Revival building that was the basis for the current courthouse. It was built of locally burned brick. This building opened for court in 1860, and work on the court continued through 1865. An addition was added to the east end of the court in 1900. In 1917, the courthouse was remodeled and two wings were added. A third story was added to the building following a fire in 1933. The courthouse has survived two tornadoes and one serious fire. The courthouse was recorded as a Texas State Archeological Landmark in 1967, and is on the National Register of Historic Places.

Civilian Conservation Corps Company #1814

Emergency Conservation Work Act. The nation's natural resources were at risk, as were the vast number of unemployed citizens. " Roosevelt's Tree Army" revitalized parks, planted tens of millions of trees, and built roads and bridges. One of the camps was located in Linden and was located adjacent to the old American Legion Hall - which is the present Music City Texas Theater. Although the buildings were dismantled and moved with the corps to their next site in Arizona, the foundations of the building are still visible. A historical marker has been erected on State Highway 11 next to the camp site. Company #1814 was organized on June 6, 1933 at Fort Logan, Colorado as a forestry camp.   On December 1, 1933 the camp was transferred to Groveton, Texas, where it remained a forestry camp until April 1934, when it was transferred to Austin to maintain and beautify Zilker Park.  In October of 1934 the company was ordered back to Groveton.  The Company was transferred to Linden, Texas on it’s fourth move on June 4, 1937. It operated out of Linden until October 4, 1939, when it was transferred to Duncan, Arizona. During the 2 1/2 years it operated in Linden, the men of Company #1814 built 35 miles of roads with 25 bridges, 75 rock dips and fords and ran 147 miles of telephone lines. They spent 3600 man days in fighting and suppressing forest fires. Many of the men met and married women from Cass County, and chose to make Linden their new home.

Victor Mikhail Arnautoff Mural: “The Last Crop”:

Located in the Linden U.S. Postal Service Building at the corner of Rush St. and Kaufman St.  

Born in the Ukraine of Russia, Victor Arnautoff (1896-1979) is one of the foremost California Modernists and was active from the beginning of this artistic movement.  He is known for the social realism of his works.  Arnautoff often depicted the harsh reality of every day life. He was also a painter, lithographer, sculptor, and respected teacher, and the subjects of his artwork ranged from portraits to still life and landscapes early in his career to more socially conscious themes later. The overt politics of the artist and his inclusion of these ideals in his works led to controversy in his own lifetime, including the brief closing of Coit Tower in San Francisco in 1934 due to the Socialist imagery found in his own work, and in that of the artists under his direction.

Arnautoff arrived in San Francisco in 1925, having traveled through China and Mexico. He enrolled in the California School of Fine Arts where he studied sculpture with Ralph Stackpole and painting with Edgar Walters. He returned to China for his wife and children, and returned to California via Mexico City where he studied with Diego Rivera from 1929 to 1931. The family then settled in San Francisco, and Arnautoff taught at the California School of Fine Arts and was Professor of Art at Stanford University from 1939 to 1963. Following the death of his wife, he returned to Russia where he continued his career as a painter and also as a mosaic muralist.

Arnautoff was offered a commission by the Post Office's Fine Arts Section in October 1938 to create a mural for the Department of Agriculture and Post Office Building in Linden.  The artwork was completed in Arnautoff's San Francisco studio and the artist traveled to Linden to supervise its installation.  The mural depicts life in Linden, Texas during the Great Depression. It reflects the hard reality of those who harvested cotton by hand.  The three main figures picking cotton are intended to symbolize the countless people in Cass County, Texas - and across the country - who worked hard under the hot sun to support their families. Between 1930 and 1940, the total number of farms in Cass County dropped from 5,841 to 4,404.  Only 26 of these farms were owner-occupied, the rest were farmed by tenant farmers (often referred to as "share-croppers").  Of those farms that were owner-occupied, many were living at a subsistance level.  Arnautoff titled the work"The Last Crop, perhaps reflecting the local decline of sharecropping and the cotton industry and that this might be the last crop picked by hand. 

In August 1940, a lithograph of The Last Crop was submitted by the artist in competition as part of an Exhibition of Works by California artists at the 1940 Golden Gate International Exposition - it won First Prize.  Arnautoff received another Post Office mural commission for College Station, Texas which was installed in 1938.

Credits: URS Corporation,The Last Crop brochure & interpretive panel, USPS

          Edan Hughes, “Artists in California, 1786-1940”http://askart.com/biography.asp?ID=4567

John O'Neal Rucker-The last American soldier killed in Vietnam.

Born March 17, 1951 in Kilgore, Texas, John O’Neal Rucker was raised in Linden, Texas. Assigned to the 366 Combat Support Group, 366 th Tactical Fighter Wing, at DaNang Air Base, Republic of Viet-Nam, he was killed in a rocket attack on January 27, 1973, just hours before the signing of the Paris Peace Accords which ended the Viet-Nam War. Sergeant Rucker is buried in the Center Hill Community Cemetery 6 miles east of Linden, Texas on FM 1841.

Photos courtesy of KTBS TV (Channel 3, Shreveport, LA)

The Pleasant Hill School in Linden, Cass County, Texas was built in 1925 with funds from the Julius Rosenwald School Building Program which was established in 1917 for the advancement of Negro education in the rural south. The building is an excellent example of a school modeled on Community School Plan #20 – the 2 teacher school shown in the 1924 publication “Community School Plans”. The building retains its original configuration and characteristics of the type including the gable roof with exposed rafter ends, wood siding and large multi-pane windows. The total cost of construction was $3,450. The Julius Rosenwald Foundation records show that the Foundation granted $700, the Negro community contributed $700, and the public contributed $2,050.

Of the 527 Rosenwald schools originally built in Texas, only 28 extant Rosenwald schools have been identified. Seventy of these schools were built in East Texas, with 23 built in Cass County. The Pleasant Hill School is the surviving Rosenwald school in Cass County. Quitman Warren, Sr., a member of the Pleasant Hill Baptist Church, donated the land for the school and for a new church for the congregation (Pleasant Hill Baptist Church is the second oldest black congregation in Texas). The school opened in 1925 with two teachers, Della Lindsay Warren and Professor R. S. Guise, and an enrollment of 70 students. The school featured two classrooms. A third room, labeled “Community Room” on Community School plans, was referred to as the kitchen at Pleasant Hill School and was also used as a third classroom. An enclosed well on the school grounds provided water, which was drawn with a bucket and rope and then poured into a barrel. A trough extended from the barrel into the building, and a faucet inside controlled the water. An outdoor privy furnished sanitary facilities until indoor bathrooms were added in the early 1950s. The building was heated with wood stoves in the winter, lighted when necessary by gas lanterns or lamps and air circulation consisted of hand fans. In February 1942, the school received electric service.

By 1964 the student population of Pleasant Hill School had dwindled to 26. The school closed and the students were transferred to the school in Linden.  The Pleasant Hill School is on the National Register of Historic Places.