Briscoe County History
Briscoe County is on the edge of the
Texas High Plains along the eastern Caprock escarpment, which
separates the Llano Estacado from the rolling plains. It is
bordered on the east by Hall County, on the west by Swisher
County, on the north by Armstrong County, and on the south by
Floyd and Motley counties. Briscoe County was separated from the
Bexar District in 1876, organized in 1892, and named for Andrew
Briscoe, a soldier in the Texas Revolution, who during the period
of the republic became a judge and railroad promoter. The county
comprises 887 square miles of irregular terrain ranging up to
3,300 feet in altitude; the elevation drops in Tule Canyon as low
as 1,000 feet. The annual precipitation averages 10.5 inches, and
the growing season averages 214 days a year. The average annual
minimum temperature is 26° F in January, and the annual maximum
is 94° in July. Silverton, the county seat, is five miles
southwest of the center of the county, which is at 101°15' west
longitude and 34°30' north latitude, sixty miles southeast of
Amarillo.
Soils vary from gray and chocolate loams to light sand in the
valleys of the Prairie Dog Town Fork of the Red River and its
tributaries, including Tule Creek. These streams have formed the
canyons and breaks crossing the county's northern and eastern
portions. Abundant native grasses grow in the broken areas, as do
mesquite and cedar trees; cotton, wheat, and grain sorghums are
raised on the arable lands above the Caprock.
Geologists have found evidence of occupation by pre-Columbian
people throughout Briscoe County; ruins of irrigation canals or
of stockades attest to a high degree of civilization. Plains
Apaches followed these Indians and were displaced around 1700 by
the Comanches, who found the canyon recesses abundant with
buffalo, antelope, and other wild game. José Mares and Pedro
Vialq led trading expeditions through the vicinity in the late
1780s, as did Francisco Amangual in 1808. The advance party of
the Texan Santa Fe expedition passed by the Quitaque country in
1841, and in 1852 captains Randolph B. Marcy and George B.
McClellan followed the Prairie Dog Town Fork through the area of
the present county. Since the breaks west of the site of present
Quitaque contained springs, that area became a favorite haunt of
Comanchero traders. White captives of Comanche raiders were often
separated and traded to other Indian bands or Comancheros in the
notorious Valley of Tears. That ended after Col. Ranald S.
Mackenzie's Fourth United States Cavalry crisscrossed the county
in pursuit of the "Mongols of the West" in 1872, and
again after they battled the Indians at Tule Creek on September
25-27, 1874. On September 29 Mackenzie's troops slaughtered over
1,000 Indian horses at Tule Canyon after their crucial victory at
Palo Duro Canyon the day before.
With the power of the Comanches broken, Briscoe County was open
for white settlement. Although the "dean" of
Comancheros, José Piedad Tafoya, had maintained a trading post
at Los Lenguas Springs (Los Lingos Creek) between 1865 and 1867,
no real settlement occurred until open-range cattle raising came
to the area. In 1878 the Baker brothers and O. J. Wiren
established the Quitaque (Lazy F) Ranch, which was added to the
JA Ranch properties in 1882 and fenced the following year. The
Quitaque, owned by Charles Goodnight and L. R. Moore after the
former terminated his partnership with Cornelia Adair in 1887,
was a primary influence on the county's early economy. The JA and
Shoe Bar ranches owned land in the northeastern part of the
county. By 1890 a few stock farmers and small ranchers had begun
taking up lands on the periphery of the Lazy F.
The town of Quitaque began in 1890 as a stage stop. Merchants and
other businessmen also trickled in; in 1891 Thomas J. Braidfoot
laid out the townsite of Silverton and led the movement for the
organization of the county. By the spring of 1892 enough settlers
had arrived to bring Braidfoot's plan to fruition. A petition was
circulated, and on March 15, 1892, the electorate officially
organized the county and chose Silverton as its seat. J. N.
Stalbird was elected the first county judge, F. D. Fisher county
attorney, R. I. Hanna treasurer, T. L. Anderson clerk, and Miner
Crawford sheriff. By 1900 the population had grown to 1,253, and
six school districts had been established. Immigrant farmers
introduced various crops to the region before World War I, the
most promising of which were wheat, sorghum, and cotton. Cotton
was first grown in Briscoe County on an experimental basis but
became one of the county's most important crops by 1930. In 1900
only eight acres of Briscoe County land was planted in cotton; in
1910 over 3,400 acres were devoted to the fiber, then 7,535 acres
in 1920, and over 36,000 acres in 1929. The county's first gin
was built in 1912.
Between 1900 and 1930 ranches gave way to farms, until most of
the arable lands were under cultivation by the early 1930s. The
number of farms in the county grew from 170 in 1900 to 307 in
1910, then to 397 in 1920 and 679 in 1930. As farming expanded,
the population grew, from 2,162 in 1910 to 2,948 by 1920 and to
5,590 by 1930.
Agricultural growth in the South Plains finally brought a
railroad into the county. Until the 1920s all freight came in
wagons, and later in automobiles, from Amarillo or Estelline. In
1925, however, the Fort Worth and Denver Railway decided to build
into the region. A branch line was completed from Estelline
westward to Quitaque and Silverton by 1927, then southward from
Quitaque to Plainview and Lubbock in 1928. Also during this time
graded auto roads replaced many of the old wagon routes; State
Highway 86 was completed from Tulia via Silverton and Quitaque to
Turkey, in Hall County. Later, State Highway 256 linked Silverton
with Memphis and Clarendon.
During the Great Depression the agricultural economy suffered and
contracted. The number of farms in the county dropped from 679 to
516 between 1929 and 1940, and cotton production dropped by more
than 30 percent. Losses associated with the depression were also
responsible for a drop in the county's population; 5,590 people
lived in Briscoe County in 1930 but only 4,056 in 1940. The
consolidation and mechanization of agriculture after World War II
resulted in further dislocation of the farm populace, and the
county's population dropped to 3,528 by 1950. A slight rise to
3,577 in 1960 was followed by sharp declines to 2,794 in 1970,
2,579 in 1980, and 1,971 in 1990. By the early 1990s Silverton
and Quitaque had populations of 779 and 513 respectively; the
remainder of the Briscoe County population resided on farms and
ranches.
In the early 1990s Briscoe County continued to rely heavily on
agriculture as a major source of revenue; its irrigated land
comprised 40,000 acres. Cotton, grain sorghums, and wheat
continued to be of prime importance, though vegetables and melons
were beginning to be introduced. Ranching in the county was
almost entirely limited to cattle. The Haynes Boy Scout and Girl
Scout camps, named for N. W. (Mammie) Haynes, an area hotel owner
and civic leader, are located in the breaks east of Silverton.
Recreation facilities are available at Lake Theo, built in 1962
and named for rancher Theo Geissler, and at Mackenzie Reservoir
and Caprock Canyons State Park,q both opened in the 1970s.
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Briscoe County Historical Survey Committee,
Footprints of Time in Briscoe County (Dallas: Taylor, 1976). S.
G. Reed, A History of the Texas Railroads (Houston: St. Clair,
1941; rpt., New York: Arno, 1981). Vertical File, Southwest
Collection, Texas Tech University. Ernest Wallace, Ranald S.
Mackenzie on the Texas Frontier (Lubbock: West Texas Museum
Association, 1964).
Donald R. Abbe and H. Allen Anderson
Source: The Handbook of Texas Online
http://www.tsha.utexas.edu/handbook/online/
(information from The Handbook of Texas
Online --
a multidisciplinary encyclopedia of Texas history, geography, and
culture.)
This page was last updated August 16, 2000.
