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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

Hays County, Texas

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

County Seat: San Marcos
Year Organized: 1848
Square Miles: 678

Court House:

111 East San Antonio Street
County Courthouse
San Marcos, TX 78666-5557

Etymology - Origin of County Name

John Coffee Hays, a leading Texas Ranger and Mexican-American War officer

Demographics:

County QuickFacts: Census Bureau Quick Facts

County History

Hays County is a county located in the U.S. state of Texas. It is named for John Coffee Hays, a Texas Ranger and Mexican-American War officer. The seat of the county is San Marcos

On March 1, 1848, the state legislature formed Hays County from territory formerly part of Travis County. William W. Moon, Eli T. Merriman,q^qv and Mike Sessom, original settlers and members of John Coffee Hays's^qv company of Texas Rangers,^qv worked with Gen. Edward Burleson,^qv a member of the Texas Senate, to have the new county named for Hays. County organization and the designation of San Marcos as county seat gave impetus to settlement; the population grew from 387 in 1850 to 2,126 in 1860. The county shrank slightly on February 12, 1858, when it lost acreage to the new Blanco County and gained a portion of Comal County. On January 10, 1862, the legislature again transferred another small area to Blanco County. Boundaries remained stable for nearly a century, until resurvey of the Hays-Travis

More at Handbook of Texas Online, s.v. "," http://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/HH/hch11.html (accessed November 6, 2008).

Geography

According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the county has a total area of 680 square miles (1,761 km²), of which, 678 square miles (1,756 km²) of it is land and 2 square miles (5 km²) of it (0.28%) is water.

Neighboring Counties:

Travis County (northeast)
Caldwell County (southeast)
Guadalupe County (south)
Comal County (southwest)
Blanco County (northwest)

Cities and Towns:

- Austin	city	Incorporated Area
- Bear Creek	village	Incorporated Area
- Buda	city	Incorporated Area
- Dripping Springs	city	Incorporated Area
- Hays	city	Incorporated Area
- Kyle	city	Incorporated Area
- Mountain City	city	Incorporated Area
- Niederwald	city	Incorporated Area
- San Marcos (County Seat)	city	Incorporated Area
- Uhland	city	Incorporated Area
- Wimberley	city	Incorporated Area
- Woodcreek	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."