COLLINGSWORTH COUNTY. Collingsworth County, on
the eastern edge of the Texas Panhandle, is
bordered on the east by Oklahoma, on the north by
Wheeler County, on the west by Donley County, and
on the south by Childress and Hall counties. The
county is named for James Collinsworth, the first
chief justice of the Republic of Texas, whose
name was misspelled in the legislation that
established the county. The center of
Collingsworth County is located at approximately
100°15' north longitude and 34°57' west
latitude, about five miles north-northwest of
Wellington, the county seat. Wellington is ninety
miles east-southeast of Amarillo. Collingsworth
County occupies 894 square miles of rolling
prairie and riverbreaks located to the east of
the Texas High Plains. The county terrain is such
that about half of its area is not suitable for
farming. Therefore ranching remains strong in the
county, balanced but not displaced by farms. The
county's sandy and loam soils support a variety
of native grasses as well as cotton, wheat, and
grain sorghums. A small amount of oil and gas is
produced in the northern part of the county. The
land is broken by the Salt Fork of the Red River,
which meanders eastward across the central
portion of the county, as well as by its many
tributaries, including Elm, Wolf, Spiller (or
Buck), and Sand creeks. The elevation of the
county ranges from 1,800 to 2,600 feet above sea
level, the average annual maximum temperature is
99° F in July, the average annual minimum is
26° F in January, the average annual
precipitation is 22.03 inches, and the growing
season averages 212 days per year.
The area that is now
Collingsworth County was occupied by Apaches from
prehistoric times until about 1700, when
Comanches and Kiowas moved in. These tribes
dominated the Panhandle until they were crushed
by the United States Army in the Red River War of
1874 and removed permanently to reservations in
Indian Territory. The Panhandle was thus opened
for settlement. In 1876 the Texas legislature
formed Collingsworth County of land previously
assigned to Bexar and Young counties.
Buffalo hunters who occupied the
area during and just after the Indian wars
slaughtered the great herds and opened the
frontier for cattlemen. Ranchers first appeared
within the borders of Collingsworth County during
the late 1870s; the Rowe Brothers Ranch
established its large holdings in southwestern
Collingsworth county during 1878. In 1880 the
United States census reported six people (three
white and three black) living in Collingsworth
County.
During the early 1880s a few huge
ranches were formed and controlled most of the
land in the county. In 1880 William and James
Curtis claimed the southeastern part of the
county for their Diamond Tail Ranch. During 1883
the Rocking Chair Ranch, an English venture like
that of the Rowe brothers, bought alternate
sections of most of the remaining land in the
northeastern part of the county, as a means of
controlling twice as much land as it actually
owned.
During the late 1880s and early
1890s, however, great changes occurred in the
ranching industry. The severe drought of 1885?87
and the even more destructive blizzard of 1886
wiped out many large ranches, while changes in
Texas land laws made it more difficult for
ranchers to control state lands desired by
settlers. As a result the large ranches began to
break up in the late 1880s and early 1890s and
smaller spreads were established by newcomers,
some of whom began farming on a limited scale. In
1890 there were eighty-nine farms and ranches in
the county, eighty-seven of them 500 acres or
smaller. About 19,800 cattle were counted in the
area that year, while about 335 acres were
devoted to the cultivation of wheat, corn, oats,
and cotton. The census counted 357 people living
in the county that year.
Immigration and economic
development led to the county's political
organization in 1890, when the growing population
felt the need for local political control. In
August of that year a petition of organization
was circulated, and in September an election was
held to choose county officers and a county seat.
The site of a proposed town, Wellington, was
elected over its competitors as the county seat.
In 1891 the new city was platted, and the
construction of a courthouse began.
County voters went Democratic in
the presidential election of 1892, and, with
three exceptions in 1928, 1952, and 1960,
continued to vote for Democrats through 1968. The
county then supported Republican candidates, with
the exception of Jimmy Carter in 1976, through
the presidential election of 2004.
Good wheat crops in 1889 and 1890
had indicated the land's agricultural potential,
and newly arriving farmers and stock farmers
eagerly purchased lands in Collingsworth County.
By 1900 there were 218 farms in the area
encompassing 584,692 acres (with 21,494 acres
classified as "improved"), and the
population had increased to 1,233. In the first
years of the twentieth century agricultural
development accelerated, and by 1910 the county
had developed a mixed ranching and farming
economy based on small and medium-sized ranches
and cotton, corn, milo, and wheat farms. That
year the census counted 806 farms in the county.
Corn culture occupied more than 26,000 acres, and
cotton culture took up almost 17,500; improved
acres on the farms totalled almost 105,000 acres.
The population of the county, 5,224, was
quadruple that of 1900. By 1920 the county had
1,139 farms and ranches, with more than 49,500
acres planted in cotton and 80,200 acres devoted
to various cereals, especially corn. By the late
1920s, all the land in the county suitable for
farming was occupied, and in 1930 Collingsworth
County maintained a mixed agricultural economy,
with numerous cattle ranches and over 246,000
acres of farmland. Almost 26,400 cattle were
counted in Collingsworth County that year, while
local farmers planted corn, wheat, oats, alfalfa,
milo, and, especially, cotton; about 162,000
acres was devoted to cotton production alone. In
1930 the census enumerated 2,112 farms and 14,461
residents in the county.
During the 1920s a dispute arose
between Texas and Oklahoma over the actual
location of the eastern boundary of the Texas
Panhandle. After resurveying, and after a United
States Supreme Court decision, the line was moved
3,800 feet to the east. Thus Lipscomb, Hemphill,
Wheeler, Collingsworth, and Childress counties of
Texas all grew slightly, at the expense of
Harmon, Beckham, Ellis, and Roger Mills counties
of Oklahoma (see BOUNDARIES).
Rail and highway systems that
developed during the first half of the twentieth
century helped to tie the area to national
markets and to encourage economic development. In
1910 the Wichita Falls and Wellington Railway
Company of Texas (which a year later became a
Missouri, Kansas and Texas subsidiary) built a
line from the Oklahoma-Texas border to
Wellington. In 1932 the Fort Worth and Denver
City Northern Railway Company built a line from
Childress to Pampa via Wellington and Shamrock.
Following the Federal Highway Aid Act of 1916 and
the establishment of the State Highway Commission
in 1917, many Texas counties began to build auto
routes. Collingsworth County began its first road
projects in 1917 by building unpaved roads. By
the mid-1920s, good roads linked Wellington to
Childress, Shamrock, Clarendon, and Memphis,
while lesser routes tied the outlying towns and
ranches to the major road system. During the
1930s and 1940s, paving and upgrading of the
system began. Today a network of federal, state,
and farm roads crisscrosses the county (see
HIGHWAY DEVELOPMENT).
The Great Depression and Dust
Bowl interrupted Collingsworth County's
expansion during the 1930s. The number of farms
in the county fell from 2,112 to 1,358 between
1929 and 1940, and the population of the county
dropped from 14,461 to 10,331 during the same
period.
Since World War II the population
of the county has continued to decline steadily,
partly due to the mechanization and consolidation
of agriculture. Collingsworth County's population
dropped to 9,139 in 1950, 6,276 in 1960, 4,755 in
1970, 4,648 in 1980, and 3,206 in 2000.
Oil and gas reserves were
discovered in the county in 1936, but only modest
production resulted: in 1956 petroleum production
totalled only 795 barrels, and in 1960, 779
barrels. Since the 1970s production has been more
impressive but still quite limited. In 1978 about
19,120 barrels of oil were pumped from
Collingsworth County lands, and 13,106 in 1982;
in 2000 the county produced 3,480 barrels. By
that year, almost 1,227,000 barrels of oil had
been produced in Collingsworth County since 1936.
By 1982 the number of cultivated
acres in Collingsworth County had declined to
156,000, as marginal lands were returned to
ranching. During the 1980s agricultural
production in Collingsworth County averaged
around $28 million annually, with a healthy mix
of cotton, grain, and beef production. By 2000
peanuts had emerged as an important local crop,
and the county was second in the state in acreage
planted in peanuts that year. In 2004 some
113,900 acres were planted, of which almost
30,000 were irrigated, and cotton, peanuts, and
wheat were the primary crops. That same year the
county reported 32,000 head of cattle. In 2000
county communities included Dodson (115),
Samnorwood (39), and Quail (33). The bulk of the
county's population, 2,275 inhabitants, resided
in Wellington, the county seat.
BIBLIOGRAPHY:
Clyde Chestnut Brown, A Survey
History of Collingsworth County, Texas (M.A.
thesis, University of Colorado, 1934). A History
of Collingsworth County and Other Stories
(Wellington, Texas: Leader Printing, 1925).
Estelle D. Tinkler, "Nobility's Ranche: A
History of the Rocking Chair Ranche,"
Panhandle-Plains Historical Review 15 (1942).
Donald R. Abbe
Donald R. Abbe,
"COLLINGSWORTH COUNTY," Handbook of
Texas Online
(http://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/hcc17),
accessed February 14, 2011.
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