Pecos County. Pecos County was a part of Presidio County until 1871, when about 11,000 square miles of territory bordering on the Pecos River was made into one county, and a county government organized in 1872, the county seat being old Fort Stockton. Fort Stockton was established about 1859, and for many years it was one of the isolated outposts in the extreme western part of Texas, and the duties of its garrison were chiefly in patrolling a country sparsely inhabited by Indians and Mexicans and in furnishing protection to the stages and other travelers along the highways that converged to this point from the East and passed on through El Paso to the Pacific Coast. The early settlers of the count" were practically all Mexicans, and it is said that the first irrigation practiced in the county was by Mexicans, who as late as thirty years ago cultivated irrigated land with the primitive wooden plow. In 1883 the northeastern end of Pecos County was detached to form the County of Reeves, and in 1905 the southern end became Terrell County. Even as thus reduced, Pecos County has an area of about fifty-five hundred square miles. Except in the western and southwestern parts its area is a level plain, covered with stunted desert vegetation.
The population of Pecos County in 1880 was 1,807. about three-fourth of whom were Mexicans, and population of course was distributed over what is now Reeves and Terrell counties. The population in 1890 was 1,326; in 1900, 2,360; in 1910, 2.071 ; in 1920. 3,857. including about 300 Mexicans. Pecos County had no railroad until 1912, when the Kansas City. Mexico & Orient was completed through the county, with a station at Fort Stockton. During the last ten years Fort Stockton has exhibited a vigorous growth, chiefly due to the irrigation enterprises developed in that vicinity, and since the coming of the railway its growth has been very rapid.
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30° 53' 38.544" N, 102° 52' 45.552" W
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