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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

Jefferson County, Texas

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

County Seat: Beaumont
Year Organized: 1836
Square Miles: 904

Court House:

1149 Pearl Street
County Courthouse
Beaumont, TX 77701-3638

Etymology - Origin of County Name

Thomas Jefferson, the third president of the United States

Demographics:

County QuickFacts: Census Bureau Quick Facts

County History

Jefferson County is a county located in the state of Texas, United States. Its county seat is Beaumont, and it is named for the former U.S. president, Thomas Jefferson.

Jefferson County, formed in 1836 and organized in 1837, was one of the original counties in the Republic of Texas.^qv It was named for the municipality that preceded it, which was in turn named for Thomas Jefferson. The county boundaries, as delineated on December 21, 1837, included all of the future Orange County, a part of what later became Hardin County, and the extreme eastern part of the future Chambers County. The first county seat, Jefferson, or Old Jefferson, on the east bank of Cow Bayou, was replaced by Beaumont in 1838 and had disappeared by 1845, when the site of Orange was surveyed. Orange was first called Jefferson or New Jefferson. In 1836, Claiborne West, a signer of the Texas Declaration of Independence,^qv served as first postmaster and merchant at Old Jefferson. Another chief town was Sabine Pass, laid out in 1839 with the backing of Sam Houston and Philip A. Sublett.^qqv Early settlers, primarily from the lower South, were joined by Cajuns in the 1840s and by immigrants from the North and from Europe in the 1850s. The area became an ethnic conglomerate. The Cajuns settled near Taylor's Bayou, the Germans^qv at midcounty.

More at Handbook of Texas Online, s.v. "," http://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/JJ/hcj5.html (accessed November 6, 2008).

Geography

Jefferson County is located on the plains of the Texas Gulf Coast in the southeastern part of the state. The county is bounded on the north by Pine Island Bayou, on the northeast by the Neches River, and on the east by Sabine Lake and the mouth of the Sabine River, a natural outlet called Sabine Pass. The southern part of the county is largely marshland, much of which is contained within Sea Rim State Park, reaching to the storm-battered beach at the Gulf of Mexico.

According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the county has a total area of 1,111 square miles (2,878 km²), of which, 904 square miles (2,340 km²) of it is land and 208 square miles (538 km²) of it (18.69%) is water.

Neighboring Counties:

Hardin County (north)
Orange County (northeast)
Chambers County (southwest)
Liberty County (northwest)
Cameron Parish, Louisiana (east)

Cities and Towns:

- Beaumont (County Seat)	city	Incorporated Area
- Bevil Oaks	city	Incorporated Area
- China	city	Incorporated Area
- Groves	city	Incorporated Area
- Lakeview	town	Incorporated Area
- Nederland	city	Incorporated Area
- Nome	city	Incorporated Area
- Port Arthur	city	Incorporated Area
- Port Neches	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."