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Garza County, Texas

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Contents

History/Timeline

Garza County was formed from the Bexar District 1876; organized 1907.

Garza county was named in honor of The Garza family, natives of the Canary Islands. [1]Garza County is a county located in the U.S. state of Texas. Garza is named for a pioneer Bexar County family, as it was once a part of that county. It is located SE of Lubbock.[2]

2000 b.c. – Native American peoples of the Americas are the first inhabitants. Later inhabitants were the Kiowa, Comanche.[2]
1731 - The Pioneer settlers of San Antonio [1]
1870s West Texas rancher, John B. Slaughter used Garza County rangeland during the 1870s
1875 W. C. Young of Fort Worth and Illinois Irishman, Ben Galbraith establish the beginnings of the Curry Comb Ranch in the NW part of Garza County.[2]
1883 - The last Indian raid in the county occurred at the Curry Comb Ranch, owned by the Llano Cattle Company; in 1884, the Square and Compass Ranch put up the first barbed wire fence in the county.[3]
1885–86 This was a bad winter, and the drought of 1886 caused cattle to die, and farmers to leave.[3]
1876 Garza County is formed from Bexar County, and named for the prominent Bexar County family of José Antonio de la Garza.[2]
1876 Garza County created August 21, 1876 has been a cattle raising county since settlement.[1]
1878 OS Ranch Founded on open range, 1878, brand was owned in 1881 by R. H. Overall.
June 15, 1907 Organized June 15, 1907 with Post as the county Seat.[1]
1880 The Garza county census count was 36 people.[2]
1882 The Square and Compass Ranch is started by the Nave and McCord Cattle Company. They put up the first barbed wire fence two years later.[2][3]
1884 OS Ranch founded by Andrew J. Long, Frank M. Long of Lexington, KY.[2]
1890s other ranchers and farmers began to move in and drilled wells to help ensure their water supply. [3]
1900 County population is 185 persons.[2]
1901 W. E. Connell acquired the ranch, who had about 200 sections of land. Ranch house a community center - for barbecues, roundups, parties. [2]
1907 Headquarters was site of election organizing Garza County. Post is founded as a utopian venture by, and named for, cereal king Charles William Post.Recorded Texas Historic Landmark, 1966.[2][3]
1909-1913 C.W. Post builds a cotton gin, a cotton mill, and attempts to improve agriculture production through rainmaking, involving the heavy use of explosives fired from kites and towers along the rim of the Caprock Escarpment.[2]
1926 Oil is discovered in the county.[2]
1934 Quanah and Bryan Maxey discover a sixteen-foot-long tusk of a prehistoric imperial mammoth. This tusk is currently located in the American Museum of Natural History, New York City, NY.[2]
1957 A Prehistoric Indian site at Cowhead Mesa is recorded by Emmet Shedd of Post.[2]
1960-1965 The South Plains Archaeological Society excavations of Cowhead Mesa found artifacts to date inhabitation back to 2000 b.c.[2]
1980 The most important business in the county are agribusiness, oil and gas extraction, and textile mills.[2]

Government Offices

Garza County has had two courthouses: 1908, 1923

2nd Courthouse, 1923 - Architect - C. A. Carlander, style was Texas Renaissance, Material Brick and concrete, Recorded Texas Historic Landmark.The 1923 Garza County Courthouse was built to replace the original one from 1908.

1923 courthouse

Geography

Stretching across the horizon as a range of flat topped mountains is the Cap Rock Escarpment, the E boundary of the vast Llano Estacado or "Staked Plains." The Llano, one of the world's most perfect plains regions, is an elongated oval extending from N to S. 3/4 (20 million acres are in Texas, with remainder in E New Mexico. It is naturally treeless, with canyons that behgin gradually, with altitude 2,700 feet on E edge to 4000 feet near New Mexico. In early pleistocene period, (750,000 yrs ago) the surface erosion shaped it.
The Caprock is tough caliche, esists erosion. it begins in Bordon County, 25 miles S and extends northward, 170 miles long into the Panhandle. The lower case is 300 feet up to 1,000 feet above the lower plains. The first white man to visit the Great Plains was the Spanish Conquistador Francisco de Coronado who crossed them in 1541 on his search for the fabled Seven Cities of Cibola, being impressed by the sea of grass covering the soil, his tracks could not be detected..[4]

https://tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/hcg03

Garza County - NW Texas, on Llano Estacado and the breaks of the lower plains.
Center point is 33°10' north latitude and 101°20' west longitude, 42 miles SE of Lubbock.
Named for a pioneer Bexar County family of José Antonio de la Garza member.
Size - 914 square miles of rough, broken land drained by tributaries of the Brazos River; :Elevation 2,100 to 3,000 feet above sea level.
Soil -sandy, loamy, and clay soils support grass, small mesquite, and thorny scrubs and cacti.
Rainfall - 18.91 inches of rainfall per year
Temperature January of 28° F and an average maximum in July of 95°.
Growing season averages 216 days.

https://tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/hcg03

Adjacent counties
  • Crosby County (north)
  • Kent County (east)
  • Scurry County (southeast)
  • Borden County (south)
  • Lynn County (west)
  • Lubbock County (northwest)
  • Dickens County (northeast)

Formed From

  • Formed from Young and Bexar Territories
Protected areas
Demographics

In 2000, there were 4,872 people living in the county with a population density of 5 people/sq. mi. The racial makeup of the county was 56.7% White (European and non-Hispanic), 4.8 Black or African American, 0.2% Native American, 0.1% Asian, 0.0% Pacific Islander, 37.2% of the population were Hispanic. The median income for a household in the county was $27,206, and the median income for a family was $31,173. Males had a median income of $26,604 versus $18,105 for females. The per capita income for the county was $12,704. About 17.50% of families and 22.30% of the population were below the poverty line, including 29.60% of those under age 18 and 18.60% of those age 65 or over.[5]

Of residents age twenty-five and older, 70 percent had completed high school and 10 percent had college degrees.

Highways

  • U.S. Highway 84
  • U.S. Highway 380
  • Texas State Highway 207
  • Texas Farm to Market Road 669
Towns/Communities

Resources

Double Mountain Fork Brazos River

  • FM 669 Flint, historical marker that describes an archaeological site where the "Garza Point" was first identified. These distinctive arrowheads were constructed from local flint, chert, and obsidian.
  • Mushaway Peak
Census
1880 --- 36 —
1890 --- 14 −61.1%
1900 --- 185 1,221.4%
1910 --- 1,995 978.4%
1920 --- 4,253 113.2%
1930 --- 5,586 31.3%
1940 --- 5,678 1.6%
1950 --- 6,281 10.6%
1960 --- 6,611 5.3%
1970 --- 5,289 −20.0%
1980 --- 5,336 0.9%
1990 --- 5,143 −3.6%
2000 --- 4,872 −5.3%
2010 --- 6,461 32.6%
Est. 2015 --- 6,415

Notables

Land Grants
Cemeteries



Sources

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 http://www.texasescapes.com/TOWNS/Post/Garza-County-Courthouse-Post-Texas.htm
  2. ↑ 2.00 2.01 2.02 2.03 2.04 2.05 2.06 2.07 2.08 2.09 2.10 2.11 2.12 2.13 2.14 2.15 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Garza_County,_Texas
  3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 3.3 3.4 https://tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/hcg03
  4. ↑ http://www.texasescapes.com/TOWNS/Post/Post_Texas.htm#visit
  5. ↑ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Garza_County,_Texas




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