Lamar 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 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 ...

, in the Northeast Texas region. As of the 2020 census, its population was 50,088. 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 ...

Paris Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, largest city of France. With an estimated population of 2,048,472 residents in January 2025 in an area of more than , Paris is the List of ci ...

. The county was formed by the Congress of 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 ...

on December 17, 1840, and organized the next year. It is named for Mirabeau B. Lamar, the second president of the Republic of Texas. Lamar County comprises the Paris, TX micropolitan statistical area.

Geography

According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the county has a total area of , of which are land and (2.8%) are covered by water.

Major highways

* U.S. Highway 82 * U.S. Highway 271 * State Highway 19 * State Highway 24 * Loop 286

Adjacent counties

* Choctaw County, Oklahoma (north) * Red River County (east) * Delta County (south) * Fannin County (west) * Bryan County, Oklahoma (northwest)

Communities

Cities

* Blossom * Deport (partly in Red River County) *

(county seat and largest municipality) * Reno * Roxton * Sun Valley *

Toco Toco is the most northeasterly village on the island of Trinidad in Trinidad and Tobago. The island of Tobago is to the northeast, making Toco the closest point in Trinidad to the sister island. The name Toco was ascribed to the area by its early ...

Census-designated place

* Brookston * Powderly * Petty

Unincorporated communities

* Ambia * Arthur City *

Atlas An atlas is a collection of maps; it is typically a bundle of world map, maps of Earth or of a continent or region of Earth. Advances in astronomy have also resulted in atlases of the celestial sphere or of other planets. Atlases have traditio ...

* Chicota * Cunningham * Glory * Hopewell * Midcity * Milton * Pattonville * Sumner

Demographics

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, 48,499 people, 19,077 households, and 13,468 families resided in the county. At the tabulation of the 2020 United States census, its population increased to 50,088. Among the population, its racial and ethnic makeup was 70.58%

non-Hispanic white Non-Hispanic Whites, also referred to as White Anglo Americans or Non-Latino Whites, are White Americans who are classified by the United States census as "White" and not of Hispanic or Latino origin. According to annual estimates from the Unit ...

, 12.73% Black or African American, 1.50% American Indian and Alaska Native, 0.95% Asian alone, 0.05%

Native Hawaiian Native Hawaiians (also known as Indigenous Hawaiians, Kānaka Maoli, Aboriginal Hawaiians, or simply Hawaiians; , , , and ) are the Indigenous peoples of Oceania, Indigenous Polynesians, Polynesian people of the Hawaiian Islands. Hawaiʻi was set ...

or other

Pacific Islander Pacific Islanders, Pasifika, Pasefika, Pacificans, or rarely Pacificers are the peoples of the list of islands in the Pacific Ocean, Pacific Islands. As an ethnic group, ethnic/race (human categorization), racial term, it is used to describe th ...

, 0.24% some other race alone, 5.14%

multiracial The term multiracial people refers to people who are mixed with two or more races (human categorization), races and the term multi-ethnic people refers to people who are of more than one ethnicity, ethnicities. A variety of terms have been used ...

, and 8.81% Hispanic or Latino American of any race. In 2000, the racial makeup of the county was 82.46%

White White is the lightest color and is achromatic (having no chroma). It is the color of objects such as snow, chalk, and milk, and is the opposite of black. White objects fully (or almost fully) reflect and scatter all the visible wa ...

, 13.47% African American, 1.08% Native American, 0.40% Asian, 1.19% from other races, and 1.41% from two or more races. About 3.33% of the population was Hispanic or Latino of any race; from 2000 to 2020, the majority if its population remained predominantly non-Hispanic white against nationwide demographic trends of increased diversification.

Education

These school districts serve Lamar County:
Text list
/ref> * Chisum ISD (small portion in Delta County) * Fannindel ISD (mostly in Delta and Fannin Counties; small portion in Hunt County) * Honey Grove ISD (mostly in Fannin County) * North Lamar ISD * Paris ISD * Prairiland ISD (small portion in Red River County) Until it closed in 2019, Roxton ISD included a part of the county. Roxton ISD consolidated into Chisum ISD after the 2018–19 school year. In addition, Paris Junior College serves the county, as per the Texas Education Code.

Politics

The majority-white population supported the Democratic Party well into the late 20th century, when it was nearly a one-party state, but in the early 21st century, most have shifted to the Republican Party. Lamar County is now represented in the Texas House of Representatives by Gary VanDeaver of New Boston.

References

External links

Lamar County government's website

Lamar 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 ...

Historic Lamar County materials
hosted by th
Portal to Texas History

- Lamar County Station {{authority control 1841 establishments in the Republic of Texas Populated places established in 1841