Swisher County

Swisher County is in the transition area between the South Plains and the Panhandle, bordered on the east by Briscoe County, on the south by Hale and Floyd counties, on the west by Castro County, and on the north by Randall and Armstrong counties. The center of the county lies at 34°33' north latitude and 100°47' west longitude. Tulia, the county seat, is near the center of the county, seventy miles north of Lubbock and forty-five miles south of Amarillo. The area was named for James Gibson Swisher, a veteran of the Texas Revolution. Swisher County occupies 896 square miles of level plains broken only by Tule Creek and its three branches, North, Middle, and South Tule draws. These intermittent streams have no appreciable effect on the terrain until they converge into Tule Creek in the eastern part of the county. In the 1940s North Tule Draw was dammed to impound a small earthen reservoir; in 1974 Mackenzie Dam was completed on Tule Creek in the eastern part of the county, and Mackenzie Reservoir began to form. This lake, made to provide a municipal water supply for Silverton, Lockney, Tulia, and Floydada, became a major recreational facility as well. The soils of Swisher County range from alluvial silts to sandy types mixed with disintegrated rock to form an easily worked earth rich in humus. This soil supports an abundant variety of native grasses as well as wheat, corn, grain sorghum, and cotton crops. The county ranges in elevation from 3,000 to 3,600 feet above sea level, averages 18.94 inches of rain per year, and has an annual growing season averaging 205 days. The average minimum temperature is 24° F in January, and the average maximum is 93° in July. The coldest temperature ever recorded in Texas, -23° F, occurred in Tulia on February 12, 1899.

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.