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Texas Counties

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Texas Counties

Texas is divided into 254 counties, more than any other U.S. state Texas was originally divided into municipalities, a unit of local government under Spanish and Mexican rule. When the Republic of Texas gained its independence in 1836, there were 23 municipalities, which became the original Texas counties. Many of these would later be divided into new counties. The most recent county to be created was Kenedy County in 1921. The most recent county to be organized was Loving County in 1931

Hall County, Texas

Hall County History, Geography, Demographics, Cities and Towns, and Education

County Seat: Memphis
Year Organized: 1876
Square Miles: 903

Court House:

Courthouse Square
County Courthouse
Memphis, TX 79245-0000

Etymology - Origin of County Name

Warren DeWitt Clinton Hall, a secretary of war for the Republic of Texas

Demographics:

County QuickFacts: Census Bureau Quick Facts

County History

Hall County is a county located in the U.S. state of Texas. Its county seat is Memphis. Hall County is named for Warren D. C. Hall, a secretary of war for the Republic of Texas.

In 1876 the Texas legislature formed Hall County from land formerly assigned to Bexar and Young Counties. With the Comanches removed from the scene, buffalo hunters moved across the plains, and between 1877 and 1882 the buffalo in Hall County were exterminated. The Rath Trail,^qv which ran from Fort Griffin to Adobe Walls, Texas, and then to Dodge City, Kansas, extended through Hall County and was used by buffalo hunters until they left the area, after which it led ranchers and their cattle in. A number of major ranching operations moved into the area during the late 1870s and the 1880s. In 1876 Charles Goodnight and John Adair^qqv established the huge JA Ranch,^qv which was headquartered in Armstrong County and spilled over into several surrounding counties, including Hall. The western part of the county, north of the Red River, was considered to be a part of the main JA Ranch into the early twentieth century. In 1878 Leigh R. Dyer^qv established the Lazy F Ranch in eastern Briscoe and western Hall counties. Charles Goodnight had taken this range by 1879; by 1882 it operated as the Quitaque Ranch^qv of the JA. The Diamond Tail Ranch^qv of William R. Curtis^qv also appeared in 1879, spread over northeast Hall County, and extended into Donley, Childress, and Collingsworth counties. In 1880, Thomas S. Bugbee^qv and L. G. Coleman established the Shoe Bar Ranch^qv to the east of the JA holdings in western Hall County; their ranch, operated informally for over a decade, became the Shoe Bar officially in 1891. In 1885 Orville H. Nelson^qv started a small (twenty-section) ranch called the Bar 96 and began raising only blooded Herefords. The Continental Land and Cattle Company^qv brought its Mill Iron Ranch to Hall County in 1888. This huge operation covered all of southern Hall County (east of the Quitaque Ranch) as well as large parts of Childress, Motley, Collingsworth, and Cottle counties. By 1890, seventy-nine ranches and farms had been established in the county and the population had increased to 703. Almost no crops were grown in the county at this time; the agricultural census for that year reported only seventeen acres planted with corn, the county's most important crop

More at Handbook of Texas Online, s.v. "," http://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/HH/hch2.html (accessed November 6, 2008).

Geography

According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the county has a total area of 904 square miles (2,342 km²), of which, 903 square miles (2,339 km²) of it is land and 1 square miles (3 km²) of it (0.11%) is water.

Neighboring Counties:

Donley County (north)
Collingsworth County (northeast)
Childress County (east)
Cottle County (southeast)
Motley County (south)
Briscoe County (west)

Cities and Towns:

- Estelline	town	Incorporated Area
- Lakeview	town	Incorporated Area
- Memphis (County Seat)	city	Incorporated Area
- Turkey	city	Incorporated Area

County Resources:

Enter County Resources and Information Here

County Resources

The history of our nation was a prolonged struggle to define the relative roles and powers of our governments: federal, state, and local. And the names given the counties, our most locally based jurisdictions, reflects the "characteristic features of this country!"

But age, size and colorful names of our counties isn't the only reason to explore counties' role in American history, or the history of county government itself. In fact, the story of county government reflects the larger meanings of American history.

Today's counties are the most flexible, locally responsive and creative governments in the US. They are the most diverse, varying in size, population, geography, and governmental structure. In their politics and policies, they express a 1990's political slogan "Think globally, act locally."