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Welcome to Texas Genealogy Trails!
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This County Website is available for adoption.
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In 1858 the Butterfield Overland
Mail missed the springs when planners drew its stage route along Centralia Draw
across the center of the county, but a source of fresh water was the first
consideration when an outpost for Fort Concho was selected on April 30, 1878.
Both the springs and the camp were named in honor of Col. Benjamin H. Grierson,
who located the camp at the site. Camp Grierson was part of the army's plan to
protect white society in the area from Indian attack and ultimately to eliminate
the Indians from Texas.
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At different times,
companies D, E, and F of the Tenth Cavalry, Company K of the
Twenty-fifth Infantry, and Company K of the Twenty-fourth Infantry
were stationed there. The camp was abandoned in 1882 when Grierson
and his Tenth Cavalry were transferred from Fort Concho to Fort
Davis. On May 26, 1885, George W. Wedemeyer stopped at the springs
and described the camp as in ruins. P. H. Coates, whose family
arrived in a train of seventeen wagons in 1885, also camped at the
springs.
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By the 1890s sheep and
goat ranchers had moved into the central area of the county near the
homesite of another early settler, Gordon Stiles, on Centralia Draw.
The local post office, named for Stiles, was established in 1894,
and a store opened there before 1900. Reagan County was carved from
Tom Green County in 1903 and named for Senator John H. Reagan, the
first chairman of the Railroad Commission. Stiles became the first
county seat. After constructing two temporary frame courthouses,
county officials built a striking two-story white stone building in
1911. In May 1923 the focus of the area economy changed from
agriculture to petroleum when the Big Lake oilfield started
producing. The discovery opened the Permian Basin and all of West
Texas to oil exploration and production. Oil wells located on lands
given to the University of Texas in 1876 subsequently became a major
source of the institution's endowment.
Rita Santa
The Towns of
Reagan County |
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ONLINE DATA |
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