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The county was originally named Buchanan County, after U.S. President James
Buchanan, but was renamed in 1861 for Alexander H. Stephens, the vice president of the Confederate States of America.
Photo provided courtesy of TexasCourthouses.com The county seat is Breckenridge.
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Comanches and Tonkawas occupied what is now Stephens County before Anglo settlement
began in the late 1850s. John R. Baylor, probably the first white settler in the area, built a cabin on the Clear
Fork in 1857, and others soon followed. The Texas legislature established Stephens County in 1858 from lands formerly
assigned to Bosque County. By 1860 there were 198 people living in the area; the United States census did not report
any slaves living in the county at that time. In 1861, after Texas had left the Union, the small town of Picketville
was designated the temporary county seat, and the county was renamed to honor the vice president of the Confederacy.
During the Civil War about 100 local residents lived together for protection at Fort Davis, a "citizens' fort"
in the area; a school was established at the place. A salt works was operated on Big Caddo Creek at this time.
County tax rolls reveal that there were thirty-three slaves in the county in 1864, near the end of the war, possibly
brought there by slaveholders who moved to the area during the conflict. Though the Tonkawa Indians were friendly,
early settlers were in constant danger of attacks by the Comanches and Kiowas who roamed the area. Samuel P. Newcomb,
a pioneer schoolteacher, wrote sadly in 1865, "My pen is incapable of doing justice in recording the horrible
depredations committed on this frontier by the barbaric, uncivilized savages." The last large Comanche and
Kiowa raids on the Clear Fork took place in 1871, although a few settlers lost their lives to raiders as late as
1873. After Indian removal settlers were free to deal with what Newcomb called the county's "disagreeable
peculiarities," which included "sand storms in spring, northers in winter, traveling grasshoppers in
the fall, and long, severe, and parching droughts in the summer and all other seasons of the year." The agricultural
census for 1870 reported twenty-four farms and ranches in Stephens County. Though settlers grew some corn and vegetables
for their own consumption, the economy of the area at that time revolved almost entirely around ranching; while
only about 600 bushels of corn were produced in the county that year, more than 43,000 cattle were reported. There
were only 300 people living in the county in 1870, and as late as 1875 ranchers were still traveling 200 miles
to Tarrant County for flour and other necessities. The county was organized in 1876, and Breckenridge became the
seat of government. |
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