Crosby County is a

county A county () is a geographic region of a country used for administrative or other purposesL. Brookes (ed.) '' Chambers Dictionary''. Edinburgh: Chambers Harrap Publishers Ltd, 2005. in some nations. The term is derived from the Old French denoti ...

located in the

U.S. state In the United States, a state is a constituent political entity, of which there are 50. Bound together in a political union, each state holds governmental jurisdiction over a separate and defined geographic territory where it shares its so ...

Texas Texas ( , ; or ) is the most populous U.S. state, state in the South Central United States, South Central region of the United States. It borders Louisiana to the east, Arkansas to the northeast, Oklahoma to the north, New Mexico to the we ...

. As of the 2020 census, its population was 5,133. The

county seat A county seat is an administrative center, seat of government, or capital city of a county or parish (administrative division), civil parish. The term is in use in five countries: Canada, China, Hungary, Romania, and the United States. An equiva ...

is Crosbyton. The county was founded in 1876 and later organized in 1886. Both the county and its seat are named for Stephen Crosby, a land commissioner in Texas. Crosby County, along with Lubbock and Lynn Counties, is part of the Lubbock metropolitan statistical area (MSA). The Lubbock MSA and Levelland micropolitan statistical area encompassing only Hockley County, form the larger Lubbock–Levelland combined statistical area. Until the passage of a

referendum A referendum, plebiscite, or ballot measure is a Direct democracy, direct vote by the Constituency, electorate (rather than their Representative democracy, representatives) on a proposal, law, or political issue. A referendum may be either bin ...

to permit liquor sales, held on May 11, 2013, Crosby County had been one of 19 remaining

prohibition Prohibition is the act or practice of forbidding something by law; more particularly the term refers to the banning of the manufacture, storage (whether in barrels or in bottles), transportation, sale, possession, and consumption of alcoholic b ...

or entirely

dry counties In the United States, a dry county is a county whose local government forbids the sale of any kind of alcoholic beverages. Some prohibit off-premises sale, some prohibit on-premises sale, and some prohibit both. The vast majority of counties no ...

within Texas. That same day, voters in Denver City and Yoakum County also approved separate referenda to permit liquor sales. The number of prohibition counties in Texas at that time hence dropped to 17. Part of the large Matador Ranch of

West Texas West Texas is a loosely defined region in the U.S. state of Texas, generally encompassing the desert climate, arid and semiarid climate, semiarid lands west of a line drawn between the cities of Wichita Falls, Texas, Wichita Falls, Abilene, Texa ...

extends into the county.

History

Around 11,000 BC,

Paleo-Indians Paleo-Indians were the first peoples who entered and subsequently inhabited the Americas towards the end of the Late Pleistocene period. The prefix ''paleo-'' comes from . The term ''Paleo-Indians'' applies specifically to the lithic period in ...

were the first inhabitants. Archeological artifacts indicate

hunter-gatherers A hunter-gatherer or forager is a human living in a community, or according to an ancestrally derived lifestyle, in which most or all food is obtained by foraging, that is, by gathering food from local naturally occurring sources, especially w ...

hunted the

mammoth A mammoth is any species of the extinct elephantid genus ''Mammuthus.'' They lived from the late Miocene epoch (from around 6.2 million years ago) into the Holocene until about 4,000 years ago, with mammoth species at various times inhabi ...

mastodon A mastodon, from Ancient Greek μαστός (''mastós''), meaning "breast", and ὀδούς (''odoús'') "tooth", is a member of the genus ''Mammut'' (German for 'mammoth'), which was endemic to North America and lived from the late Miocene to ...

, saber-toothed cat, and giant ground sloth. Later Native American inhabitants included the

Comanche The Comanche (), or Nʉmʉnʉʉ (, 'the people'), are a Tribe (Native American), Native American tribe from the Great Plains, Southern Plains of the present-day United States. Comanche people today belong to the List of federally recognized tri ...

. In 1871, Ranald S. Mackenzie fought Quanah Parker and other Comanches at the Battle of Blanco Canyon. The campaign established the Mackenzie Trail used by the first settlers in Crosby County in the late 1870s. The Texas Legislature formed Crosby County from Young and Bexar districts in 1876.

Bavaria Bavaria, officially the Free State of Bavaria, is a States of Germany, state in the southeast of Germany. With an area of , it is the list of German states by area, largest German state by land area, comprising approximately 1/5 of the total l ...

n Heinrich Schmidtt (Henry “Hank” Clay Smith) and his wife Elizabeth Boyle and their six children became the first permanent settlers in the area in 1878; Hank was active in the county's organization. Confederate veteran Paris Cox first visited the Caprock Escarpment of the Llano Estacado with a group of buffalo hunters in 1879. Estacado was named the county seat in 1886. By 1900, the beef industry was thriving, supporting 30,618 head. The country and western song (Ghost) Riders in the Sky was inspired by a legend of a stampede that took place in Crosby County in 1889 In 1908, the Bar-N-Bar Ranch began selling acreage to farmers. Crosbyton became the new county seat in 1910. Some in the county were planted in cotton, and 15,000 apple and peach trees were growing in the county in 1920. By 1929, farmers owned 83,000 chickens and sold 395,000 dozen eggs that year. The first soil conservation district in the county was formed in 1941. In 1955, oil was discovered in the county.

Geography

According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the county has a total area of , of which are land and (0.2%) are covered by water.

Major highways

U.S. Highway 62 * US 82

U.S. Highway 82/ State Highway 114 * Texas 207

State Highway 207

Adjacent counties

* Floyd County (north) * Motley County (northeast) * Dickens County (east) * Kent County (southeast) * Garza County (south) * Lynn County (southwest) * Lubbock County (west) * Hale County (northwest)

Geographic features

* Blanco Canyon * White River, Silver Falls *

Mount Blanco Mount Blanco is a small white hill — an erosional remnant — located on the eastern border of the Llano Estacado within Blanco Canyon in Crosby County, Texas. With Blanco Canyon, it is the type locality of the early Pleistocene Blanco Formation ...

* Caprock Escarpment

Demographics

As of the census of 2000, 7,072 people, 2,512 households, and 1,866 families resided in the county. The population density was . The 3,202 housing units averaged . The racial makeup of the county was 63.77% White, 3.89% Black or African American, 0.54% Native American, 0.03% Asian, 0.07% Pacific Islander, 29.89% from other races, and 1.81% from two or more races. About 48.93% of the population was Hispanic or Latino of any race. Of the 2,512 households, 35.6% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 59.0% were married couples living together, 11.4% had a female householder with no husband present, and 25.7% were not families. About 23.8% of all households were made up of individuals, and 13.4% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 2.78 and the average family size was 3.30. In the county, the population was distributed as 30.7% under the age of 18, 8.5% from 18 to 24, 24.0% from 25 to 44, 21.1% from 45 to 64, and 15.6% who were 65 years of age or older. The median age was 34 years. For every 100 females, there were 91.1 males. For every 100 females age 18 and over, there were 87.2 males. The median income for a household in the county was $25,769, and for a family was $29,891. Males had a median income of $23,775 versus $17,229 for females. The per capita income for the county was $14,445. About 22.6% of families and 28.1% of the population were below the poverty line, including 36.6% of those under age 18 and 22.7% of those age 65 or over.

Communities

Cities

* Crosbyton (county seat) * Lorenzo * Ralls

Unincorporated communities

* Broadway * Cap Rock *

Cone In geometry, a cone is a three-dimensional figure that tapers smoothly from a flat base (typically a circle) to a point not contained in the base, called the '' apex'' or '' vertex''. A cone is formed by a set of line segments, half-lines ...

* Estacado (partly in Lubbock County) * Kalgary * Owens * Robertson

Ghost towns

* Canyon Valley *

Farmer A farmer is a person engaged in agriculture, raising living organisms for food or raw materials. The term usually applies to people who do some combination of raising field crops, orchards, vineyards, poultry, or other livestock. A farmer ...

* Savage * Wake

Education

School districts serving the county include: * Crosbyton Consolidated Independent School District * Lorenzo Independent School District * Petersburg Independent School District * Ralls Independent School District The county is in the service area of South Plains College.

Gallery

File:Mt Blanco 2005.jpg,

File:Blanco Canyon in Crosby County Texas 2009.jpg, Blanco Canyon File:Llano_Estacado_Caprock_Escarpment_south_of_Ralls_TX_2009.jpg, Caprock Escarpment south of Ralls

Politics

Republican Drew Springer Jr., a businessman from Muenster in Cooke County, has since January 2013 represented Crosby County in the

Texas House of Representatives The Texas House of Representatives is the lower house of the bicameral Texas Legislature. It consists of 150 members who are elected from single-member districts for two-year terms. There are no Term limits in the United States, term limits. The ...

References

External links

Panhandle-Plains Historical Museum

Crosby County government’s website
*
Crosby County Profile from the Texas Association of Counties

{{Coord, 33.61, -101.30, display=title, type:adm2nd_region:US-TX_source:UScensus1990 1886 establishments in Texas Populated places established in 1886 Majority-minority counties in Texas