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Dimmit 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 ...
of
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 8,615. Its
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 Carrizo Springs. The county was founded in 1858 and later organized in 1880. It is named after Philip Dimmitt, a major figure in the
Texas Revolution The Texas Revolution (October 2, 1835 – April 21, 1836) was a rebellion of colonists from the United States and Tejanos (Hispanic Texans) against the Centralist Republic of Mexico, centralist government of Mexico in the Mexican state of ...
. The spelling of the county name and the individual's name differ because of a spelling error in the bill creating the county name.


History


Native Americans

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 ...
artifacts indicate these people lived in Dimmit County as far back as 9200 BC. The archaic period (6000 BC to AD 1000) up to the arrival of the Spanish brought increased
hunter-gatherer A hunter-gatherer or forager is a human living in a community, or according to an ancestrally derived Lifestyle, lifestyle, in which most or all food is obtained by foraging, that is, by gathering food from local naturally occurring sources, esp ...
s to the area. These Indians subsisted mostly on game, wild fruits, seeds, and roots. They carved tools from wood and stone, wove baskets, and sewed rabbitskin robes. They also made pottery and hunted with bows and arrows. Their most effective weapon was the ''
atlatl A spear-thrower, spear-throwing lever, or ''atlatl'' (pronounced or ; Classical Nahuatl, Nahuatl ''ahtlatl'' ) is a tool that uses leverage to achieve greater velocity in Dart (missile), dart or javelin-throwing, and includes a Plain bearing, b ...
'', a throwing stick that greatly increased the deadliness of their spears.
Coahuiltecan The Coahuiltecan were various small, autonomous bands of Indigenous peoples of the Americas, Native Americans who inhabited the Rio Grande valley in what is now northeastern Mexico and southern Texas. The various Coahuiltecan groups were hunter ga ...
Indians native to now-Dimmit County were later squeezed out by
Apache The Apache ( ) are several Southern Athabaskan language-speaking peoples of the Southwestern United States, Southwest, the Southern Plains and Northern Mexico. They are linguistically related to the Navajo. They migrated from the Athabascan ho ...
and Comanche. Hostile tribes harassed settlers, forcing some to pull up stakes. Texas Rangers and local volunteers, as well as disease, ran the Indians out of the county by 1877.


The Wild Horse Desert

The area between the
Rio Grande The Rio Grande ( or ) in the United States or the Río Bravo (del Norte) in Mexico (), also known as Tó Ba'áadi in Navajo language, Navajo, is one of the principal rivers (along with the Colorado River) in the Southwestern United States a ...
and the
Nueces River The Nueces River ( ; , ) is a river in the U.S. state of Texas, about long. It drains a region in central and southern Texas southeastward into the Gulf of Mexico. It is the southernmost major river in Texas northeast of the Rio Grande. ''Nu ...
, which included the county, became disputed territory known as the Wild Horse Desert, where neither the
Republic of Texas The Republic of Texas (), or simply Texas, was a country in North America that existed for close to 10 years, from March 2, 1836, to February 19, 1846. Texas shared borders with Centralist Republic of Mexico, the Republic of the Rio Grande, an ...
nor the Mexican government had clear control. Ownership was in dispute until the
Mexican–American War The Mexican–American War (Spanish language, Spanish: ''guerra de Estados Unidos-México, guerra mexicano-estadounidense''), also known in the United States as the Mexican War, and in Mexico as the United States intervention in Mexico, ...
. The area became filled with lawless characters, who deterred settlers in the area. An agreement signed between Mexico and the United States in the 1930s put the liability of payments to the descendants of the original land grants on Mexico.


County established and settlements

Dimmit County was officially established in 1858 from parts of Bexar, Webb, Maverick, and Uvalde Counties. The county was organized in 1880. Carrizo Springs became the county seat. Early settlers found Dimmit County to be an abundant grassland with mesquite, oak, and ash trees and wildlife that included buffalo, deer, turkeys, feral horses (mustangs), panthers, and javelinas. Artesian springs, bubbling up from a vast reservoir of underground water, fed into running streams that harbored giant catfish, crawfish, and mussels. Explorers found the area a good place to hunt mustangs, and to feed and water cattle. Pioneering cattleman Levi English settled Carrizo Springs in 1865 with a group of 15 families from Atascosa County. Within two years, they were joined by a second group of settlers from Goliad County. Early dwellings were crude adobe structures or dugouts. In 1880, Levi English donated land for a county courthouse, schools, and churches in the town. Lawlessness, banditry, and in particular, cattle rustling from both sides of the Mexican border, pervaded until the 1880s. Marshal J. King Fisher, managed to bring about a reduction in the lawlessness. King also staunchly enforced the "dry county" law once the residents voted to outlaw the sale of alcohol. Dimmit County's first producing oil well was drilled in 1943. In 1980, Dimmit County farmers earned about $20 million for their crops, while about $60 million in oil and gas were produced. Formation of the 1914 White Man's Primary Association was designed to exclude Latino Americans from any meaningful participation in county politics. In the 1944 '' Smith v. Allwright'' case, the
United States Supreme Court The Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) is the highest court in the federal judiciary of the United States. It has ultimate appellate jurisdiction over all U.S. federal court cases, and over state court cases that turn on question ...
found the White Primary to be unconstitutional.


Water

D.C. Frazier drilled the first artesian well, which produced gallons of water a minute, near Carrizo Springs in 1884. By 1900, about 25 artesian wells were flowing in the Carrizo Springs area, but most of the water was wasted, and very little was used for irrigation. Colonel J.S. Taylor introduced large-scale Bermuda onion and strawberry farming to the area, and was the first to use irrigation on a large scale in Dimmit County. In 1899, Taylor built a 30 ft dam across the Nueces River to irrigate of farmland. He also drilled a deep artesian well. By 1910, Taylor's methods were being imitated by a number of other developers and vegetable farmers. Irrigation helped make Dimmit County part of the Texas Winter Garden region. By the 1920s, however, artesian water began to dry up. The necessity of installing expensive pumps drove many farmers out of business. By 1934, the
United States Department of the Interior The United States Department of the Interior (DOI) is an United States federal executive departments, executive department of the Federal government of the United States, U.S. federal government responsible for the management and conservation ...
concluded that the existing water supply would not support substantial additional development. By 1965, only about were being irrigated. Much of the land reverted to rangeland.


Oil

The Big Wells oil field, east of Big Wells, was discovered in 1969. The field produces from the
Cretaceous The Cretaceous ( ) is a geological period that lasted from about 143.1 to 66 mya (unit), million years ago (Mya). It is the third and final period of the Mesozoic Era (geology), Era, as well as the longest. At around 77.1 million years, it is the ...
San Miguel Formation
sandstone Sandstone is a Clastic rock#Sedimentary clastic rocks, clastic sedimentary rock composed mainly of grain size, sand-sized (0.0625 to 2 mm) silicate mineral, silicate grains, Cementation (geology), cemented together by another mineral. Sand ...
underlying the Olmos Formation sandstone. The field extends north into Zavala. The Eagle Ford oil field was reported to be under development in 2011, with 3,000 wells projected to extract oil by
hydraulic fracturing Fracking (also known as hydraulic fracturing, fracing, hydrofracturing, or hydrofracking) is a well stimulation technique involving the fracturing of Formation (geology), formations in bedrock by a pressurized liquid. The process involves the ...
from tight shale formations. The oil play has improved business activity in the county, but raised fears regarding the adequacy of water supplies, as fracking requires injection of large quantities of water under pressure into wells to break surrounding rock.


Geography

According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the county has a total area of , of which are land and --> (0.4%) are covered by water.


Major highways

* U.S. Highway 83 * U.S. Highway 277 * State Highway 85


Adjacent counties

* Zavala County (north) * Frio County (northeast) * La Salle County (east) * Webb County (south) * Maverick County (west)


Demographics


2020 census

As of the 2020 United States census, there were 8,615 people, 3,178 households, and 2,427 families residing in the county. As of the
census A census (from Latin ''censere'', 'to assess') is the procedure of systematically acquiring, recording, and calculating population information about the members of a given Statistical population, population, usually displayed in the form of stati ...
of 2000, 10,248 people, 3,308 households, and 2,646 families were residing in the county. The
population density Population density (in agriculture: Standing stock (disambiguation), standing stock or plant density) is a measurement of population per unit land area. It is mostly applied to humans, but sometimes to other living organisms too. It is a key geog ...
was . The 4,112 housing units averaged . The racial makeup of the county was 76.95% White, 0.88% African American, 0.70% Native American, 0.66% Asian, 18.3% from other races, and 2.51% from two or more races. About 84.97% of the population were Hispanic or Latino of any race. Of the 3,308 households, 42.0% had children under 18 living with them, 57.4% were married couples living together, 17.2% had a female householder with no husband present, and 20.0% were not families. About 18.0% of all households were made up of individuals, and 9.30% had someone living alone who was 65 age or older. The average household size was 3.06, and the average family size was 3.48. In the county, the age distribution was 33.2% under 18, 8.8% from 18 to 24, 24.70% from 25 to 44, 20.7% from 45 to 64, and 12.6% who were 65 or older. The median age was 32 years. For every 100 females, there were 94.30 males. For every 100 females age 18 and over, there were 91.10 males. The median income for a household in the county was $21,917, and for a family was $24,579. Males had a median income of $25,000 versus $15,370 for females. The
per capita income Per capita income (PCI) or average income measures the average income earned per person in a given area (city, region, country, etc.) in a specified year. In many countries, per capita income is determined using regular population surveys, such ...
for the county was $9,765. About 33.20% of the population and 29.70% of families were below the
poverty line The poverty threshold, poverty limit, poverty line, or breadline is the minimum level of income deemed adequate in a particular country. The poverty line is usually calculated by estimating the total cost of one year's worth of necessities for ...
. Of the total population, 40.30% of those under the age of 18 and 31.50% of those 65 and older were living below the poverty line. The county's ''per capita'' income makes it one of the poorest counties in the United States.


Politics

Like most of heavily
Hispanic The term Hispanic () are people, Spanish culture, cultures, or countries related to Spain, the Spanish language, or broadly. In some contexts, Hispanic and Latino Americans, especially within the United States, "Hispanic" is used as an Ethnici ...
South Texas, Dimmit votes predominantly Democratic. While the state of Texas went strongly for Republican
George W. Bush George Walker Bush (born July 6, 1946) is an American politician and businessman who was the 43rd president of the United States from 2001 to 2009. A member of the Bush family and the Republican Party (United States), Republican Party, he i ...
in the 2004 presidential election, Dimmit County was a traditional stronghold of the Democratic Party, supporting U.S. Senator
John F. Kerry John Forbes Kerry (born December 11, 1943) is an American attorney, politician, and diplomat who served as the 68th United States secretary of state from 2013 to 2017 in the Presidency of Barack Obama#Administration, administration of Barac ...
of
Massachusetts Massachusetts ( ; ), officially the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, is a U.S. state, state in the New England region of the Northeastern United States. It borders the Atlantic Ocean and the Gulf of Maine to its east, Connecticut and Rhode ...
, with 2,365 votes for Kerry to 1,188 for Bush. The last Republican to win a majority in Dimmit County was
Richard Nixon Richard Milhous Nixon (January 9, 1913April 22, 1994) was the 37th president of the United States, serving from 1969 until Resignation of Richard Nixon, his resignation in 1974. A member of the Republican Party (United States), Republican ...
in
1972 Within the context of Coordinated Universal Time (UTC) it was the longest year ever, as two leap seconds were added during this 366-day year, an event which has not since been repeated. (If its start and end are defined using Solar time, ...
. In 1892, Dimmit County gave all its few votes to Populist James B. Weaver, thus making it his leading county.


Education

All of Dimmit County is served by the Carrizo Springs Independent School District. Asherton Independent School District closed in 1999 and joined Carrizo Springs ISD. The designated community college is Southwest Texas Junior College.Texas Education Code: Sec. 130.200. SOUTHWEST TEXAS JUNIOR COLLEGE DISTRICT SERVICE AREA.
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Communities


Cities

* Asherton * Big Wells * Carrizo Springs (county seat)


Census-designated places

* Brundage * Carrizo Hill * Catarina


See also

* Asher and Mary Isabelle Richardson House * National Register of Historic Places listings in Dimmit County, Texas * Recorded Texas Historic Landmarks in Dimmit County * Winter Garden Region


References


External links


Dimmit County in ''Handbook of Texas Online''
at the
University of Texas The University of Texas at Austin (UT Austin, UT, or Texas) is a public research university in Austin, Texas, United States. Founded in 1883, it is the flagship institution of the University of Texas System. With 53,082 students as of fall 2 ...
* Rea
Philip Dimmit's entry
in th
Biographical Encyclopedia of Texas
hosted by th
Portal to Texas History

Historic Dimmit County materials
hosted by th
Portal to Texas History.

Dimmit County History
at HistoricTexas.net
''Dimmit County Profile'' by the Texas Association of Counties
{{coord, 28.42, -99.75, display=title, type:adm2nd_region:US-TX_source:UScensus1990 1880 establishments in Texas Populated places established in 1880 Majority-minority counties in Texas Hispanic and Latino American culture in Texas