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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

Rusk County, Texas

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

County Seat: Henderson
Year Organized: 1843
Square Miles: 924

Court House:

115 North Main Street
County Courthouse
Henderson, TX 75652-3147

Etymology - Origin of County Name

Thomas Jefferson Rusk, a general in the Texas Revolution and leading statesman in the new state

Demographics:

County QuickFacts: Census Bureau Quick Facts

County History

Rusk County is a county located in the U.S. state of Texas. Originally a part of Nacogdoches County, Rusk was established as its own county by the Congress of the Republic of Texas on January 16, 1843. Its seat is Henderson. Rusk County is named for Thomas Jefferson Rusk, a secretary of war of the Republic of Texas.

The area has been the site of human habitation for several thousand years. Archeological artifacts suggest that the earliest human inhabitants arrived during the Archaic Period, 2,000 to 3,000 years ago. Evidence of the prehistoric Caddo culture, which flourished between A.D. 1000 and 1600, has also been found in the area, and the earliest Spanish explorers encountered the remnants of that culture during their first forays into the region. Between 1761 and 1810 two Tejas villages are known to have existed in the area of the future county: Aynais, in the southwestern corner of the present county, and Nacogdoches Village, near the site of present Minden. As many as four early Spanish expeditions crossed what is now Rusk County between 1691 and 1788. Domingo Terán de los Ríos^qv crossed the area on his way to the northeast in 1691, and Domingo Ramón^qv led an expedition across the county around 1717. Fray José Calahorra y Saenz^qv passed through the southwestern corner in September 1760, and in 1788 Pedro Vial^qv traversed the northern portion of the future county. Although the area was part of the Department of Nacogdoches, the Spanish never built any permanent settlements in it, and today very little Spanish or Mexican influence can be seen in the county except for the names of a few streams. The first Anglo-American settlers came into Rusk County as early as 1829. The earliest land grant within the present-day borders of the county was issued to William Elliott on March 22, 1829; other early grantees included the brothers Thomas and Leonard Williams, Joseph Durst,^qqv and Henry Stockman. By 1834 white settlers began to arrive in large numbers; between May 2 and November 23, 1834, the Mexican government issued forty-three land grants in the area, the majority of them to recent American immigrants. After the Texas Revolution,^qv the population grew rapidly, as new settlers arrived by way of Trammel's Trace,^qv the Nacogdoches Road, and the Green Grass Trail. Cherokee and Shawnee Indians under the leadership of Chief Bowl^qv occupied the western part of the area during the 1820s and 1830s, but with their removal after the Cherokee War^qv in 1839 the way was opened for white settlement. Most of the new colonists came from the Old South, particularly Tennessee, Georgia, North Carolina, and South Carolina, attracted by the availability of abundant cheap land. Although most of the early settlers were of modest means, some were wealthy planters, among them James Smith, Julien Sidney Devereux,^qqv and Albert Tatum, who brought sizable numbers of slaves with them. After Texas independence the territory was originally a part of Nacogdoches County, but upon an act of the Congress of the Republic of Texas,^qv Rusk County was formed on January 16, 1843, and was named for Thomas Jefferson Rusk,^qv who had been secretary of war under President Sam Houston.^qv The county seat was established as near the center of the county as possible by the five commissioners appointed to acquire land for the purpose. Gen. James Smith donated the original townsite of 65.5 acres, and he later sold 69.5 acres more to the town. Later, William B. Ochiltree^qv donated five acres north of the town square and in the deed named the town for his friend James Pinckney Henderson.^qv

More at Handbook of Texas Online, s.v. "," http://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/RR/hcr12.html (accessed November 8, 2008).

Geography

According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the county has a total area of 939 square miles (2,431 km²), of which, 924 square miles (2,392 km²) of it is land and 15 square miles (39 km²) of it (1.61%) is water

Neighboring Counties:

Gregg County (north)
Harrison County (northeast)
Panola County (east)
Shelby County (southeast)
Nacogdoches County (south)
Cherokee County (southwest)
Smith County (northwest)

Cities and Towns:

- Henderson (County Seat)	city	Incorporated Area
- Mount Enterprise	city	Incorporated Area
- New London	city	Incorporated Area
- Overton	city	Incorporated Area
- Tatum	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."