![]() ![]() After the most famous one, the Warren Wagontrain Raid of May 18, 1871, in neighboring Young County, chiefs Satanta and Big Tree were taken to Jacksboro for trial and sentenced to be executed on September 1, 1871. Though federal forces returned to the area after the end of the war, Indian raids on the new settlers continued. The 1860 census counted 1,000 people in Jack County, but by 1870 the population had dwindled to 694. Without an army presence, Indian raids became frequent and numerous residents were forced to flee eastward. The Jack County area was untouched by combat, but the removal of federal troops from the frontier had dire consequences for the populace. Hamner, advocated the Southern cause, county residents voted 76 to 14 against secession in February 1861. Though the earliest newspaper in the county, the Whiteman (1860), owned and operated by Harris A. Mesquiteville was designated county seat the town was later renamed Jacksboro.īecause of the county's position on the frontier and its relative isolation, a plantation economy never developed on the eve of the Civil War only thirty-seven slaves lived in the county. It was the most northern of the Texas frontier forts built to protect pioneers against Indian raids and was abandoned in 1878. Fort Richardson, on Lost Creek near the site of present-day Jacksboro, was established by the United States Army in 1867 and completed in 1869. The Butterfield Overland Mail crossed the county. It is the only county with that name in the United States. Jack, participants in the Texas Revolution. The Texas legislature approved the establishment of the county on August 27, 1856, and named it for William H. Early settlers entering Jack County came mainly from the middle South states, primarily Alabama, North Carolina, Arkansas, Missouri, and Kentucky, many by way of Smith County or other parts of Texas. Settlers began arriving in the future county by 1855, and by 1856 the first settlement, Keechi, was established. Jack County was included in the Texan Emigration and Land Company, more commonly known as the Peters colony. The first Europeans to visit the area may have been Spaniards under Francisco Vásquez de Coronado in the sixteenth century, but they made no permanent settlements. The average rainfall is about thirty inches a year, and the growing season extends for 218 days.īefore White settlement Jack County was a borderland between the Caddo Indians to the east and the Comanches to the west. Temperatures in January range from an average low of 31° F to an average high of 57° and in July from 73° to 97°. The climate is subtropical-subhumid, generally mild and dry. Mineral resources include petroleum, natural gas, and stone. Lake Bridgeport and Lake Jacksboro are in the county. Among other creeks are East Rock, Howard, Lost, Crooked, the North Fork of Crooked, Little Cleveland, the West Fork of Keechi, Two Bush, and Henderson. The West Fork of the Trinity River cuts across Jack County diagonally from northwest to southeast and provides the main drainage for the county. The altitude increases from east to west and ranges from 800 feet to 1,350 feet. The county's 920 square miles is forested mainly by mesquite, live oak, blackjack oak, and post oak, with pecan, elm, walnut, and cottonwood trees along the waterways. The land is undulating to hilly, with light-colored, loamy soils over very deep reddish clayey subsoils, shale, and sandstone. Jack County is situated in the North Central Prairies region. Other communities in the county include Bryson, Jermyn, Perrin, Antelope, Wizard Wells, Post Oak, Bartons Chapel, Cundiff, Gibtown, Joplin, Newport (also in Clay County), Truce, and Vineyard. The county's center is at 98☁0' west longitude and 33☁2' north latitude. Jacksboro, the county seat and the largest town in the county, is sixty miles southeast of Wichita Falls and seventy miles northwest of Fort Worth. Jack County, in north central Texas, is bordered by Clay, Archer, and Montague counties to the north, Young County to the west, Palo Pinto and Parker counties to the south, and Wise County to the east. ![]()
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