Hall County, Texas

Hall County, located in the southeastern Panhandle east of the High Plains, is bordered on the west by Briscoe County, on the south by Motley and Cottle counties, on the east by Childress County, and on the north by Donley and Collingsworth counties. Memphis, the county seat, is on U.S. Highway 287 about ninety miles southeast of Amarillo.

Cities, Towns & Communities

Brice | Estelline | Lakeview | Lesley | Memphis – county seat | Newlin | Parnell | Plaska | Turkey

History

Hall County was formed in 1876 by the Texas legislature from land formerly assigned to Bexar and Young Counties. With the Comanches removed from the scene, buffalo hunters moved across the plains, and between 1877 and 1882 the buffalo in Hall County were exterminated. The Rath Trail, which ran from Fort Griffin to Adobe Walls, Texas, and then to Dodge City, Kansas, extended through Hall County and was used by buffalo hunters until they left the area, after which it led ranchers and their cattle in. A number of major ranching operations moved into the area during the late 1870s and the 1880s. In 1876 Charles Goodnight and John Adair established the huge JA Ranch, which was headquartered in Armstrong County and spilled over into several surrounding counties, including Hall. The western part of the county, north of the Red River, was considered to be a part of the main JA Ranch into the early twentieth century. In 1878 Leigh R. Dyer established the Lazy F Ranch in eastern Briscoe and western Hall counties.

Hall County History 1922. The first Panhandle railroad, the Fort Worth & Denver City, completed in 1888, crossed the northeast corner of Hall County and inaugurated an era of town building and agricultural development in a section which had for a dozen years been pre-eminently the home of the stockman. At the census of 1880, Hall County had a population of only 36. By 1890 the inhabitants numbered 703, and in spite of the hard conditions which prevailed here, as elsewhere, during the ’90s, the population by 1900 was 1.670. Since the beginning of the present century, Hall County has become well settled, and in 1910 the census enumerated 8,279 people residing within its boundaries ; in 1920, 11,137, showing 34.5 per cent increase. The county seat is Memphis, one of the flourishing towns of the Panhandle, with a population in 1910 of 1,936; in 1920, 2,855. Two other railroads towns are Newlin and Estelline, while several other post offices and store centers are found in the back districts of the county.

County Histories

Inez Baker, Yesterday in Hall County, 1940 by Inez Baker

Virginia Browder, Hall County Heritage Trails, 1890–1980, 2 volumes by Virginia Browder.

Location

Memphis, TX 34° 43′ 29.1936″ N, 100° 32′ 2.4504″ W

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