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 October 18, 2008 | Cherokee County Courthouse Texas County Courthouse Project #58: Cherokee County (Rusk, Texas) In 1819, Chief Bowl of the Cherokees moved his tribe to East Texas in search of better hunting ground after being forced into a slow migration across the southern United States. In Texas the Cherokees sought to ally themselves with the Spanish and Mexican governments and finally with the Texas government. Sam Houston negotiated a treaty with the Cherokee in 1836, guaranteeing them possession of land in central East Texas. The Texas Senate, however, threw out the treaty in 1839. Where they had a strong ally in Sam Houston, they had an even stronger enemy in the new President, Mirabeau B. Lamar. Lamar ordered the removal of the Cherokee from Texas which resulted in the Cherokee War and the death of Chief Bowl in the Battle of Neches. It seems a little ironic that the county was named Cherokee less than ten years after their expulsion from the area. After Cherokee County was established in 1846, Rusk was chosen as the county seat. At the time only one family lived in the community. Like nearby Rusk County, Rusk is named for Texas patriot Thomas Jefferson Rusk. A signer of the Texas Declaration of Independence, he fought at the battle of San Jacinto and served as Secretary of War and Chief Justice of the Supreme Court in the Republic of Texas. More importantly to the citizens of Cherokee County, he served an important role in the expulsion of the Cherokee to Oklahoma. He would go on to serve in the U.S. Senate. Thomas Rusk ended his own life a little over a year after the death of his wife. Rusk, Texas was home to three governors; Texas Governors James Hogg and Thomas Campbell and Wyoming Governor John B. Kendrick. It is also the home of the Texas State Railroad and the nation’s longest footbridge. The Cherokee County courthouse was built in 1941 as a part of a New Deal agency, the Public Works Administration. It was one of the last courthouses built by the PWA as it was abolished that same year. 
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