Nolan County

Nolan County, Texas

Nolan County, Texas

Abandoned grain elevator in Nolan County, Texas. Photograph by Leaflet.
Nolan County, Texas

Nolan County, Texas

Map of Nolan County, Texas. Map Credit: Robert Plocheck.
Nolan County, Texas

Nolan County, Texas

Wind turbines across the landscape where Taylor and Nolan Counties meet.
Photograph Credit: Robert Plocheck.

Nolan County is in west central Texas, bounded on the east by Taylor County, on the south by Coke and Runnels counties, on the west by Mitchell County, and on the north by Fisher County. The center of the county lies at 32°18' north latitude and 100°24' west longitude. Sweetwater, the county seat and largest population center, is forty-two miles west of Abilene, 125 miles southeast of Lubbock, and 130 miles northeast of Odessa. The county was named for Philip Nolan. It lies on the lower plains, with the western end of the Callahan Divide in the southern section of the county. The land is predominantly rolling uplands to the north, with plateaus traversed by valleys in the south; altitudes range from 2,000 to 2,700 feet above sea level. Streams in the northern part of the county, including Cottonwood, Bitter, Stink, and Sweetwater creeks, drain into the Clear Fork of the Brazos River. In the southern part of the county Silver, Wilson, Fish, and Oak creeks drain into the Colorado River. The loamy soils of the county are light to dark, with deep, clayey or loamy subsoils and lime accumulations. The county has very little timber; hackberry, scrubby post oak, cottonwood, and mesquite trees grow along the streams, and Rocky Mountain junipers or scrub cedars grow on the hillsides. Annual rainfall averages 22.19 inches, and the growing season averages 221 days. Temperatures range from an average minimum of 30° F in January to an average maximum of 96° F in July. The agricultural economy centers around cattle and livestock products, but 50 percent of the annual agricultural income is from crops, especially cotton, wheat, sorghum, and hay. Petroleum, natural gas, gypsum, rock, and sand and gravel are also produced in the county.

The area of Nolan County had no Anglo settlers until after the Civil War, when buffalo hunters came to the plains. The county was carved from the Young-Bexar territory by the Texas legislature in 1876 and attached to Shackelford County for administrative purposes. Knight's store on Sweetwater Creek was started in a dugout in 1877 to serve buffalo hunters operating in the area. The county's first post office was opened in 1879 in the village of Sweet Water, which was two words until the spelling was officially changed in 1918. The original name of the post office was Blue Goose, derived from a story that the first postmaster ate a blue crane that cowboys told him was a blue goose. By 1880 there were fifty-two ranches in the area, and the economy was dominated by the cattle industry. The agricultural census that year reported 24,515 cattle, 1,300 sheep, and only sixty-four acres devoted to growing corn, the county's most important crop at that time. The 1880 census reported 640 people living in the county. The county was organized after an election held on January 20, 1881, and in April the Nolan County Court declared that Sweetwater was to be the new permanent county seat. The townsite was on the Texas and Pacific Railway, which had built into the area that March. The first newspaper in Nolan County, the Sweetwater Advocate, was published in 1881. Though a blizzard in February 1885 destroyed much of the livestock in the area, settlers continued to move into Nolan County. By 1890 there were 144 ranches and farms, and the population had increased to 1,573. Ranching still dominated the local economy at that time, though sheep had come to outnumber cattle in the area, 38,000 to 13,000. Meanwhile, 563 acres were planted in corn, 900 acres in oats, and 490 acres in wheat. Hundreds of new settlers moved into the area during the 1890s and early 1900s, establishing towns as they arrived. Roscoe, which grew on the site of a proposed Texas and Pacific station called Vista, was incorporated in 1890, and the town's first shortlived newspaper, the Enterprise, was published in 1893, and replaced by the Roscoe Times in 1906. Blackwell, originally named Jamestown, was built around a station on the Kansas City, Mexico and Orient Railway about 1906, and Maryneal was established about the same time. Further settlement was encouraged in 1908, when the Roscoe, Snyder and Pacific Shortline Railway was built to run fifty miles from Roscoe to Fluvanna. Between 1897 and 1908 fifteen post offices were established in Nolan County. Reflecting these trends, the population of the county rose to 2,611 by 1900 and to 11,999 by 1910.

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Gerald McDaniel | © TSHA

Handbook of Texas Logo

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

Currently Exists

Yes

Place type

Nolan County is classified as a County

Altitude Range

1896 ft – 2603 ft

Size

Land area does not include water surface area, whereas total area does

  • Land Area: 912.0 mi²
  • Total Area: 914.0 mi²

Temperature

January mean minimum: 29.0°F
July mean maximum: 93.9°F

Rainfall, 2019

22.4 inches

Population Count, 2019

14,714

Civilian Labor Count, 2019

6,917

Unemployment, 2019

6.1%

Property Values, 2019

$3,044,614,460 USD

Per-Capita Income, 2019

$43,087 USD

Retail Sales, 2019

$301,648,024 USD

Wages, 2019

$75,052,396 USD

Nolan County

Highlighted:
  • Nolan County
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Place Type Population (Year/Source) Currently Exists
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Town 254 (2021) Yes
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Town 10 (2009) Yes
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Town 6 (2009) Yes
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Town 50 (2009) Yes
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Town 60 (2009) Yes
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Town 1,244 (2021) Yes
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Town 10,513 (2021) Yes
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Town 12 (2009) Yes
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