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White
hunters cleared the land of buffalo and wild horses in the
1870s, while Colonel Ranald S. MacKenzie's Fourth United States
Cavalry subdued the Comanches in 1874 and 1875. MacKenzie's base
of operations against the Indians was located at Anderson's
Fort, also called Soldiers Mound, an army supply camp located
near the site of present-day Spur. In 1876 the Texas state
legislature formed Dickens County from land previously assigned
to Bexar County. |
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In
1890 Hagins planted the first cotton in Dickens County on school
land obtained from the state for fifteen cents an acre and 5
percent of the valuation. To avoid the 100-mile haul he had to
make to Jones County for ginning of his first crop, Hagins built
a gin in 1891. That same year, the county was politically
organized, with the town of Espuela. Dickens was
subsequently chosen as the county seat, and by 1893 the town had
a courthouse, a hotel, two stores, and a wagonyard. By 1900, 197
farms and ranches had been established in the county, and the
population had increased to 1,151.
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