County Offices to Close Oct. 9 for Columbus Day

Kerr County offices, including those located in the courthouse at 700 Main Street in Kerrville and at the West Kerr County Courthouse Annex at 510 College Street in Ingram, will be closed on Monday, Oct. 9, in observance of Columbus Day.

Residents are assured that the holiday will cause no interruption of emergency services, including law enforcement, fire department and EMS.

Columbus Day is a United States federal holiday that commemorates the landing of Christopher Columbus in the Americas in 1492.

The holiday falls on a date that would normally be a Kerr County Commissioners’ Court regular meeting day. Because of that, the court will meet instead on Tuesday, Oct. 10, starting at 9 a.m. in the first-floor commissioners’ courtroom of the courthouse.

An agenda for that meeting will be posted at the end of the preceding week, and will be viewable by the public on both the public notices and the county commissioners’ court pages on the county’s website: www.kerrcountytx.gov.

For those who cannot attend the meeting, commissioners’ court sessions are available either livestreamed or in recorded format at https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC-LD3iT7VijiBWrOMplcjug -- the county’s YouTube channel.

County offices will resume their regular business hours on Tuesday. For specific hours of each department, refer to their pages on the county’s website.

After Columbus Day, the next time county offices will close for a holiday will be to mark Veterans Day. It will be observed on Friday, Nov. 10.

After that, the remaining 2023 calendar holidays for the county include two two-day observances: for Thanksgiving on Thursday and Friday, Nov. 23-24, and for Christmas on Monday and Tuesday, Dec. 25-26.

Columbus Day was first celebrated, unofficially, as early as the 18th Century. It was not declared a federal holiday until 1937.

Columbus, an Italian, set sail in August 1492 with the Nina, the Pinta and the Santa Maria, bound for Asia. He and his crew were supported by the Spanish monarchy, in particular King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella. Doing their bidding, he was to map out a western sea route to Asia. Instead, on Oct. 12, he landed and became the first European to explore the Americas.