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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

Hood County, Texas

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

County Seat: Granbury
Year Organized: 1865
Square Miles: 422

Court House:

100 East Pearl Street
County Courthouse
Granbury, TX 76048-2449

Etymology - Origin of County Name

John Bell Hood, a Confederate lieutenant general and the commander of Hood's Texas Brigade

Demographics:

County QuickFacts: Census Bureau Quick Facts

County History

Hood County is a county located in the U.S. state of Texas. Its seat is Granbury. Hood County is named for John Bell Hood, a Confederate lieutenant general and the commander of Hood's Texas Brigade.

Hood County was formed in November 1866 by an act of the Eleventh Texas Legislature. The area had been within the Municipality of San Felipe de Austin as early as 1823 and the Municipality of Viesca in 1834. After Texas became a republic, the area now known as Hood County had, at one time or another, been part of Robertson, Navarro, McLennan, Johnson, and Erath counties. The county was named after Lt. Gen. John Bell Hood^qv of the Confederate Army. The county seat was to be named in honor of Confederate general Hiram Bronson Granbury.^qv Location of the new county seat was a controversial issue. Residents in the southern section of the county favored the center of the county, as stated in the law. The other choice was a parcel of land donated by influential county leaders Thomas Lambert and J. F. and J. Nutt. The commission established to designate the county seat, citing a poor water supply at the center of the county, voted in favor of the donated land. The controversy surrounding the site of Granbury eventually caused the residents of the southern section of the county to petition for a new county. As a result, in 1875, Somervell County was established by an act of the Texas legislature. In that same year a fire destroyed the courthouse in Granbury. From the first days of organized government Hood County has voted Democratic at the local and state level. Immediately after the Civil War the county was overwhelmingly Democratic, owing mainly to the predominantly white population. In 1870 whites made up 96 percent of the population. The highest total of blacks in Hood County was 241 in 1900, or only 3 percent of the population. The last three decades of the nineteenth century saw a steady increase in the population, and in 1910 the total was just over 10,000. The number of farms also reached its zenith (1,786) in 1910. The primary crops were cotton, corn, and oats. Numbers of livestock also reached a peak between 1900 and 1910. In the latter year there were more than 22,500 cattle in Hood County. Residents were able to send their produce and livestock to market on the Fort Worth and Rio Grande Railway, which had been completed in 1887

More at Handbook of Texas Online, s.v. "," http://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/HH/hch17.html (accessed November 6, 2008).

Geography

According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the county has a total area of 437 square miles (1,131 km²), of which, 422 square miles (1,092 km²) of it is land and 15 square miles (39 km²) of it (3.48%) is water.

Neighboring Counties:

Parker County (north)
Johnson County (east)
Somervell County (south)
Erath County (west)
Palo Pinto County (northwest)

Cities and Towns:

- Cresson	city	Incorporated Area
- deCordova	city	Incorporated Area
- Granbury (County Seat)	city	Incorporated Area
- Lipan	city	Incorporated Area
- Tolar	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."