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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

Wichita County, Texas

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

County Seat: Wichita Falls
Year Organized: 1858
Square Miles: 628

Court House:

900 7th Street
County Courthouse
Wichita Falls, TX 76301-2402

Etymology - Origin of County Name

the Wichita Native American tribe

Demographics:

County QuickFacts: Census Bureau Quick Facts

County History

Wichita County is a county located in the U.S. state of Texas. The county seat is Wichita Falls.

The area that became Wichita County was home for Caddoan Indians, principally the Wichitas and Taovayas, who migrated to the area from present Kansas and Nebraska, in the middle of the eighteenth century. Despite their mastery of the horse—introduced into the region by Spanish explorers—and therefore the buffalo,^qv these natives remained heavily dependent upon agriculture. The location of their lands, in extreme north central Texas, placed them in conflict with the Lipan Apaches and the Comanches, both of which claimed the area as their own territory and continued to visit it long after their removal to Oklahoma. The presence of often aggressive Native Americans caused difficulties for Anglo-American settlers in the region until after 1850, when the federal troops forced the Indians to relocate to reservations north of the Red River. A number of Europeans, beginning with the Spanish Indian trader Athanase de Mézières,^qv visited the area that became Wichita County during the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. Among these were Pedro Vial and José Mares,^qqv who crossed the region in the course of developing trails from San Antonio to Santa Fe, New Mexico, in 1786 and 1787, and members of the Texan Santa Fe expedition^qv in 1841. Although local lands had been granted to survivors and heirs of soldiers who fought in the Texas Revolution^qv as early as the 1830s, the first surveys of the area that is now Wichita County took place in 1854 under the direction of the Texan Emigration and Land Company. Mabel Gilbert,^qv a pioneer of the settlement that became Dallas, became Wichita County's first permanent Anglo-American settler when he built a house on a bluff above the Red River, ten miles north of the site of present Wichita Falls, in 1855. Although Native Americans twice drove him from his isolated farm, in 1855 and 1862, he returned in 1867 and died there three years later. Wichita County was established by act of the Texas legislature on February 1, 1858, from the Cooke Land District, and was attached to Clay County for judicial purposes. The new county was named for the Wichita Indians, and settlement was hindered by Indian attacks. Most of the area's Anglo-American pioneers arrived after 1870, when school lands were purchased to become cattle ranches, which have remained an important part of the economy.

More at Handbook of Texas Online, s.v. "," http://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/WW/hcw8.html (accessed November 9, 2008).

Geography

According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the county has a total area of 633 square miles (1,639 km²), of which, 628 square miles (1,626 km²) of it is land and 5 square miles (14 km²) of it (0.85%) is water.

Neighboring Counties:

Tillman County, Oklahoma (north)
Cotton County, Oklahoma (northeast)
Clay County (east)
Archer County (south)
Wilbarger County (west)

Cities and Towns:

- Burkburnett	city	Incorporated Area
- Cashion Community	city	Incorporated Area
- Electra	city	Incorporated Area
- Iowa Park	city	Incorporated Area
- Lakeside City	town	Incorporated Area
- Pleasant Valley	town	Incorporated Area
- Wichita Falls (County Seat)	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."