|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
||||||||||||
|
|
|||||||||||||
| Much of the area had been designated part of San Patricio County since 1836, but in 1855 a group
of frontiersmen gathered under a huge live oak tree at Gussettville and drew up a petition asking that a new jurisdiction
be instituted for their settlements. Acceding to their request, the state legislature formed Live Oak County from
San Patricio and Nueces counties on February 2, 1856. Later that year county officials accepted a donation of 640
acres for the townsite of Oakville, near the old settlement on Sulfur Creek, and designated it the county seat.
By 1858, three settlements in the county—Oakville, Gussettville, and Echo—were considered large enough to be granted
post offices by the federal government; in 1860 the census counted 593 people in Live Oak County, most of them
in the eastern part. In the early years of settlement, residents usually lived on a subsistence level, raising
only small patches of crops, if any, and killing wild game for meat. For money to buy necessary supplies, they
relied on the large herds of wild cattle, hogs, and mustangs that grazed in the area. The market for cattle and
mustangs was limited in the early years of the county, but some cattle were driven to coastal towns, and mustangs,
once broken, could be sold in San Antonio and East Texas. There was greater demand for the meat, hides, and tallow
taken from the many wild hogs in the area. A single family could capture and slaughter as many as a hundred hogs
in a year and sell the products in San Antonio, Tilden, or Oakville. Eighty-five slaves were counted in Live Oak
County in 1860, but since there was virtually no commercial agriculture in the area at the time, it is not clear
how they were employed.George West, the county's largest town and seat of government, is in south central Live
Oak County at the intersection of U.S. highways 59 and 281.
|
|||||||||||||
| George West is a city in Live Oak County, Texas, United States. The population was 2,524 at
the 2000 census. It is the county seat of Live Oak County. George West was named the "storytelling capital
of Texas" in 2005 by the Texas Senate; and it hosts the George West Storyfest, a festival that features storytelling,
cowboy poetry, and music. Numerous ranches surround George West.
|
|||||||||||||
|
|
|
||||||||||||
|
|
|||||||||||||
