Last week, someone asked me if there was some kind of courthouse challenge in Texas. For them, I think it was an innocuous question, but for me it started a whole bunch of neurons spinning.
I’ve seen mention of courthouse challenges in the past, but I’ve never done one or encountered one in the wild. As you can imagine (and I can only assume), the challenge is to find a cache within a certain radius (possibly a mile I’m guessing) of a courthouse and replicate that feat in a certain number of counties. Interesting thought that’s right up my alley, but a cursory glance immediately brought up questions and concerns that I’m sure only I would have. The first and glaring one was: did it have to be the county courthouse or any courthouse in the county? For instance, in Las Cruces, they didn’t have a county courthouse, but they had district and superior courts and others for state and federal concerns. Would or could one of those count? The second was more subtle: if it was the county courthouse specifically, did it have to be the current county courthouse or could it be a historical courthouse? I immediately thought of Salem and its lovely courthouse row. From what I could tell, all the courthouses are still in use by the county, but could I measure my mile from the farthest and oldest one? While it wouldn’t matter substantially there, a long city block could be a substantial distance, especially somewhere where maybe the current courthouse was on the edge of town but an old courthouse was in the center. And how would dual county seats work? Kansas City and Independence are both active along with thirty–five other dual counties in the country. My third question was a corollary to the second: if historical courthouses are allowed, do they have to be actively used by the county? The Blanco County Seat is Johnson City, but the town of Blanco has a historical courthouse that’s now a commercial structure housing offices and event space. Should that one be an option or no? Finally, it occurred to me to ask if you have to get a cache in the same county! Even after all these years, Duval County is still never far from my mind. Even after all these years, I’ve never seen another county seat so close to the county line. Not even Cheyenne!
All this said, I’m not even sure how much courthouse challenges are even a thing. A quick search in the challenge checkers available on Project-GC reveals that there only seems to be one. It’s based in Tennessee and its goal is to find specific caches in a series that have all been placed at courthouses (none of which I have been to yet). A deeper search didn’t find there being any sort of courthouse-based challenges active, archived, or otherwise. So now I’m wondering whether or not they’ve ever really been a thing. Have I really heard about them or am I misremembering other things? Just as importantly, do I actually want to try to make it a thing? I think it’s safe to say that I’m uniquely suited to do so. If anyone has accomplished such a feat in great enough numbers to warrant a decent challenge, it’s probably me. Of course, would anyone else even want to do it? I doubt there’s enough interest in courthouses among the caching set to make it worth it. Then again, I have heard that if you build it, they will come.
For now, I’m going to file this away. Even if I had the time and energy to make this happen and I ironed out the questions I posed about such a challenge, I can already imagine the work I would have to put into getting coordinates for however many courthouses I’d want to include in the scope of this challenge. If I merely restricted it to Texas, I’d have to figure out coords for 254 county courthouses at a minimum. If I add in historical ones, I don’t even begin to know how many. If I want to extend it to more states, I could probably make a full-time job out of getting courthouse coordinates. So for now, this is all firmly in the realm of “maybe one day.” As the poem said, a man’s reach should exceed his grasp, or what’s a heaven for?
Geocaching While Black 