County: Carson County
Location of courthouse: Main St. & 5th St., Panhandle
Location of county: Center of Panhandle; crossroads of: I-40, US-60, TX-152 & TX-207
Created: 1876
Named After: Samuel Price Carson, the first secretary of state of the Republic of Texas
County seat: Panhandle
Elevation (highest): 3399 feet (1036 meters)
Population: 5,926 (2019)
CARSON COUNTY. Carson County, in the center of the Panhandle and on the eastern edge of the Texas High Plains, is bounded on the north by Hutchinson County, on the west by Potter County, on the south by Armstrong County, and on the east by Gray County. Carson County was named for Samuel P. Carson, the first secretary of state of the Republic of Texas. The center of the county lies at roughly 35°25' north latitude and 101°22' west longitude. The county occupies 900 square miles of level to rolling prairies surfaced by dark clay and loam that make the county almost completely tillable and productive. Native grasses and various crops such as wheat, oats, barley, grain sorghums, and corn flourish. The huge Ogallala Aquifer beneath the surface provides water for people, crops, and livestock. Trees, usually cottonwood, oak, or elm, appear, along with mesquite, in the county's creekbottoms. Antelope and Dixon creeks, both intermittent streams, run northward from central Carson County to their mouths on the Canadian River in Hutchinson County. McClellan Creek, also intermittent, runs eastward across the southeastern corner of the county to join the Red River. Carson County ranges from 3,200 to 3,500 feet in elevation, averages 20.92 inches of rain per year, and varies in temperature from a minimum average of 21° F in January to a maximum average of 93° in July. The growing season averages 191 days a year.
"Prehistoric hunters first occupied the area, and then the Plains Apaches arrived. Modern Apaches followed them and were displaced by Comanches, who dominated the region until the 1870s. Spanish exploring parties, including those of Francisco Vázquez de Coronado in the 1540s and Juan de Oñate in the early 1600s, crisscrossed the Texas Panhandle, but it is not known if they traversed Carson County. American buffalo hunters penetrated the Panhandle in the early 1870s as they slaughtered the great southern herd. The ensuing Indian wars, culminated by the Red River War of 1874, led to the extermination of the buffalo and the removal of the Comanches to Indian Territory. The Panhandle was thus opened to settlement. Carson County was established in 1876, when its territory was marked off from the Bexar District.
"Ranchers appeared in Carson County in the early 1880s. The JA Ranch of Charles Goodnight and John G. Adair and the Turkey Track Ranch both grazed large ranges in Carson County by 1880. In 1882 Charles G. Francklyn purchased 637,440 acres of railroad lands in Gray, Carson, Hutchinson, and Roberts counties, 281,000 of them in Carson County. The newly formed Francklyn Land and Cattle Company, with B. B. Groom as manager, attempted to ranch and farm on a large scale, but failed. The lands of the Francklyn Company were sold to the White Deer Lands Trust of British bondholders in 1886 and 1887.
"Water had to be brought to Panhandle by railroad from the area of Miami in Roberts County, then carried in barrels on wagons to homesteads. This problem hindered development until it was found that abundant underground water could be pumped to the surface by windmills. That discovery, together with the selling of White Deer lands to small ranchers and farmers in 1902, greatly increased the area's attractiveness. During the next thirty years a modern agricultural economy emerged, based on the production of livestock, wheat, corn, and grain sorghum.
"Carson County therefore has a balanced and diversified economy based on ranching, farming, oil, transportation, and the Pantex plant. Most of the farmland is located in the eastern part of the county, while the western part remains ranchland. In the 1940s and 1950s many local farmers drilled irrigation wells to tap the Ogallala Aquifer, and by the 1980s about 33 percent of cultivated land in the county was irrigated. The local agricultural economy remained relatively static after the 1940s; by 1982, land under cultivation totaled 281,424 acres. The number of farms and farmers declined, however, as mechanization led to a growth in farm size and corresponding decline in the number of farms. In 2002 the county had 363 farms and ranches covering 451,669 acres, 55 percent of which were devoted to crops and 45 percent to pasture. That year farmers and ranchers in the area earned $44,054,000; livestock sales accounted for $29,848,000 of the total. Wheat, sorghum corn, soybeans, and hay were the principal crops.
"The voters of Carson County favored the Democratic candidate in virtually every presidential election from 1888 through 1948; the only exception occurred in 1928, when Republican Herbert Hoover took the county. After 1952, when Republican Dwight Eisenhower won a majority of the county's votes, the area began to shift, and Republican candidates carried the county in virtually every presidential election from 1952 to 2004. The only exceptions occurred in 1964 and 1976, when Democrats Lyndon Johnson and Jimmy Carter, respectively, took the county.
"The population of the county also remained essentially stable after World War II. It rose from 6,624 in 1940 to 6,852 in 1950, and again to 7,781 by 1960. It declined somewhat during the 1960s to 6,358 in 1970, then rose again to 6,672 in 1980. By 2014 there were 6,013 people living in the county, most of whom lived in its towns, which include White Deer (population, 976), Skellytown (459), and Groom (558). Panhandle (2,348) is Carson County's largest town and its seat of government." ~ Texas On Line