National Fallout Shelter Program Public Shelters Virtual Tours
Grayson County Courthouse, Sherman, Texas 2001 & 2008
I first stopped by the Grayson County Courthouse in Sherman Tx back in 2001 during a fallout shelter scrounging trip. I took these photos later in 2008. The first floor is up above ground level a bit with a half-basement underneath so you have to walk up steps from ground level to go in through the main entrance. In the above photo you can see the half basement window to the left of the stairs. I didn't see any evidence that there was ever a fallout shelter sing on the front of the building. The courthouse front faces north-northwest.
This is the west southwest entry to the half-basement hallway. There was a fallout shelter sign at this entrance originally. It was located in between the two first floor windows, exactly halfway up the height of the windows at the upper right of the photo. Notice the earth bermed up against the outside of the courthouse foundation wall to the left in the photo.
 |
 |
In the main hallway to the right just before you reach the stairs down to the half-basement of the courthouse this door was still marked with a Fallout Monitoring Station, Civil Defense decal. The above photos were taken in 2008 and the decal still looked new. I don't know if the decal is still there as of this writing in Sept. 2014.
When reaching the end of the hall there is a short stairway down to the half-basement. A FS-2 steel sign marks the area at the midpoint of the hallway. The sign is placed just above a World War I memorial plaque. To the right of the plaque is a very interesting framed document. See Below
A close up of the sign shows a capacity of 135 which is interesging because the framed civil defense document to the right of the plaque says "Maximum Capacity 1653." The document does have a note that there is "Additional Shelter On Floor No. 2." Now I am thinking that maybe there was a number 1 missing from the capacity on the sign and the capacity of the basement was 1135? I don't know. If there was addtional shelter on the 2nd floor it would have to have been in the very central core of the building and I can't imagine that would be large enought to hold 1518 people even at 10 square feet per person. I never found any signs on the 2nd floor of the building. See Below
Here is a closer view of the civil defense documents in the frame.
I was pretty surprised when I saw this during my first visit in 2001. I had never seen anything like this
in a community fallout shelter before. Then I found the document envelope in the frame
at the Central Christian Church in Sherman, Tx so evidently this is something
Sherman Civil Defense when the shelters were marked. In the frame was a list of shelter
personnel and a drawing of the floorplan which was almost completely faded
out except for a note at the bottom of the drawing. I believe these documents were displayed out
of the envelope because these were in the courthouse where the general public would be more likely
to see them. The Central Christian Church documents were framed inside an envelope. I asked around the courthouse
that day if there were still supplies in the shelter but no one knew anything
about it. The drawing was far to faded to make out anything on it but I
would bet that if any supplies were ever there the location was on the drawing.
Click photo to see larger image.