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In this room, the Texas Supreme Court, highest civil appelate court of the state, sat for 70 years, until removal in 1959 to the new Supreme Court Building. The court, which dates from the Republic of Texas, consisted of a Chief Justice and varying numbers of associate justices until 1945, when the number of associates was set at eight. Before 1945 the court was at times assisted by judges of the Commission of Appeals, who sometimes sat here with the court itself. The bench was installed in 1889, at the time that the court began to sit here. From it renowned Texas judges have heard oral argument by eminent lawyers in the most important civil cases decided during this period of greatest development in the state. The Latin words at the center of the bench read, "As God was to our forefathers, so may he be to us." For many years prior to 1966 the walls of the room were largely covered with portraits of past justices of the court, including, just above the bench, those of the first three to sit after Texas joined the Union in 1845. Today portraits of most of the past associate justices have been removed. The room is now a permanent committee hearing room of the Texas House of Representatives. (1968) |
