Marion County

Marion County is in northeastern Texas; its eastern boundary forms a portion of the Louisiana-Texas border. Jefferson, the county's largest town and its county seat, is seventeen miles north of Marshall, in Harrison County, and forty-six miles west of Shreveport, Louisiana. The county's center is at 32°47' north latitude and 94°20' west longitude. Marion County covers 380 square miles of the dense timberlands of East Texas. The land surface is a gently rolling, rich, sandy loam, underlain by a clay foundation and cloaked by pine, cypress, and oak forests. The elevation is 200 to 500 feet above sea level. The county is drained by the Red River basin via the watershed areas of Caddo Lake, Lake o' the Pines, and Big Cypress, Little Cypress, and Black Cypress bayous. The region's mineral deposits include oil, natural gas, clay, and lignite coal. Temperatures range from an average low of 32° F to an average high of 54° F in January and from 71° to 93° F in July. The growing season is 236 days in length, and the yearly rainfall is forty-four to forty-five inches. Marion County was demarked from the southern portion of Cass County by an act of the state legislature on February 8, 1860. Territorial additions in 1863 and 1874 extended its southern boundary to include both banks of Big Cypress Bayou. The county was named for American Revolutionary War hero Francis Marion, the "Swamp Fox."

Adapted from the official Handbook of Texas, a state encyclopedia developed by the Texas State Historical Association (TSHA). It is an authoritative source of trusted historical records.