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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

Palo Pinto County, Texas

Palo Pinto County History, Geography, Demographics, Cities and Towns, and Education

County Seat: Palo Pinto
Year Organized: 1856
Square Miles: 953

Court House:

P.O. Box 369
County Courthouse
Palo Pinto, TX 76484-0369

Etymology - Origin of County Name

Palo Pinto Creek (Palo Pinto is Spanish for painted stick)

Demographics:

County QuickFacts: Census Bureau Quick Facts

County History

Palo Pinto County is a county located in the U.S. state of Texas. The seat of the county is Palo Pinto

In 1856 the Texas state legislature established Palo Pinto County from lands formerly assigned to Bosque and Navarro counties. The county was organized the next year, with the town of Golconda chosen to be the seat of government. The town was renamed Palo Pinto in 1858. One of the first businesses in the county, an ox treadmill, was established that year. By 1860 there were 1,524 people, including 130 slaves, living in the county. Almost 15,400 cattle and more than 3,200 sheep were counted on Palo Pinto ranches and farms that year. Farmers grew mostly corn, wheat, and oats, although seventeen bales of cotton were also produced. Though crop farming was becoming better established in the area, the area's economy centered around cattle in the years just after the Civil War.^qv In 1867 cattlemen Oliver Loving and Charles Goodnight established the famed Goodnight-Loving Trail^qv to western markets. In 1876 C. C. Slaughter, James C. Loving,^qv and C. L. "Kit" Carter met to discuss the theft of cattle by reservation Indians and white rustlers, and the challenge to their open range by new settlers. Out of this meeting on Slaughter's ranch grew the organizational meeting, held at Graham the next year, of the Stock Raiser's Association of Northwest Texas, later known as the Texas and Southwestern Cattle Raisers Association.^qv Carter, of Palo Pinto, was the association's first president. In the late 1870s and early 1880s some ranchmen began fencing rangeland to which they held title. Some settlers opposed fencing of the traditionally free open range, and incidents of fence cutting^qv and violence resulted (see also BARBED WIRE). By 1880 there were 648 farms and ranches in Palo Pinto County; of these, 476 were operated by their owners, 28 were operated by renters, and 144 were farmed by sharecroppers. Over 9,300 acres in the county were planted in corn, the county's most important crop at that time, with another 2,425 acres devoted to wheat. Cotton was becoming an important cash crop, and 4,300 acres in the county were devoted to the fiber. As cropland in the county expanded, so did the number of livestock: by 1880 there were 42,400 cattle and 5,000 sheep grazing in the county. Nine manufacturing businesses, employing twenty workers, had been established in the county. The area's expanding population reflected its economic growth, as the census counted 5,882 people living in Palo Pinto County that year

More at Handbook of Texas Online, s.v. "," http://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/PP/hcp1.html (accessed November 8, 2008).

Geography

According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the county has a total area of 986 square miles (2,552 km²), of which, 953 square miles (2,468 km²) of it is land and 33 square miles (84 km²) of it (3.30%) is water.

Neighboring Counties:

Jack County (north)
Parker County (east)
Hood County (southeast)
Erath County (south)
Eastland County (southwest)
Stephens County (west)
Young County (northwest)

Cities and Towns:

- Gordon	city	Incorporated Area
- Graford	city	Incorporated Area
- Mineral Wells	city	Incorporated Area
- Mingus	city	Incorporated Area
- Palo Pinto (County Seat)
- Strawn	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."