Van Zandt County

Van Zandt County is on Interstate Highway 20 fifty miles east of Dallas in the Claypan Area of northeastern Texas. The center of the county is at 32° 25' N, 95° 59' W, near the county seat of Canton. Van Zandt County covers 855 square miles, with altitudes ranging from 421 to 573 feet. The Neches River rises in eastern Van Zandt County, and the Sabine River forms part of the northeastern county line. Creeks in the eastern portion of the county are part of the Trinity River watershed. The northwestern third of the county is undulating with gray to black, cracking clayey soils and slightly acidic, light-colored, loamy soils over deep clayey subsoils. The central third has light-colored soils with sandy surfaces over mottled, clayey subsoils. The southeastern third has gently rolling to hilly terrain surfaced by light colored loam over very deep, reddish, clayey subsoils. Natural resources include oil, gas, salt, iron ore, and clays. The eastern two-thirds of the county is in the Post Oak Savannah vegetation area, with tall grasses and post and black jack oak predominating. The western third is in the Blackland Prairies vegetation region, which is characterized by tall grasses, mesquite, and oak, and pecan and elm trees along streams. Wildlife includes eastern gray and fox squirrels, various species of bats and skunks, small herbivores such as gophers, mice, rabbits, and armadillos, as well as raccoons, white-tailed deer, opossums, bobcats, coyotes, and red and grey foxes. Frogs, toads, numerous snake species, including the poisonous copperhead, cottonmouth, coral, and rattlesnake, are found in abundance. The climate is subtropical humid with hot summers. The annual average precipitation is forty-three inches, and the average annual temperature is 65° F. Temperatures in January range from an average low of 33° to an average high of 54° F and in July range from 72° to 97° F. The growing season averages 250 days per year, with the last freeze in mid March and the first freeze in late November.

The area has long been the site of human habitation. Artifacts from the Paleo-Indian and Archaic cultures have been found in the region, suggesting that it has been continuously occupied for more than 10,000 years. When the first Europeans arrived, the region was dominated by various Caddoan Indian tribes, but diseases, especially smallpox, ravaged these agrarian peoples by the time the first Anglo-American settlers arrived. During the 1820s and 1830s the eastern portion of the future county was occupied by refugee Cherokee Indians led by Chief Bowl. The Cherokees had a brief but colorful history in their new home. Chief Bowl was instrumental in preventing them from joining the Fredonian Rebellion. As a result the Republic of Mexico granted them title to lands in the area in 1827. In 1836 the government of Texas, then in revolt against Mexico, validated the claim. A treaty was signed but soon broken. President Mirabeau B. Lamar, known for his aggressive Indian policy, pressed the issue in 1839. In the battle of the Neches, fought over two days in the area that is now Henderson and southeastern Van Zandt counties, the Cherokees were decisively beaten and dispersed.