Hamilton County, Texas

Hamilton County, located in Central Texas, is bounded on the north by Comanche County, Erath County, and Johnson County, on the west by Mills County, and on the south by Lampasas County and Coryell County. Hamilton, the county seat, is about 125 miles north of Austin.

Cities, Towns and Communities

Aleman | Evant | Fairy | Hamilton – county seat | Hico | Indian Gap | Jonesboro (part in Coryell County) | Lanham | Pottsville

History

By 1860, when the county’s first post office was established at the hamlet of Hico, the county included several small but well-established communities; that year the census found 489 residents. Geography helped to determine the pattern of settlement, as pioneers built along the wooded streams that crossed the rolling prairie, leaving the intervening divides to remain open range. According to the 1860 agricultural census only 290 acres of the county’s 1,800 acres of farmland was improved; the wheat harvest was about 1,050 bushels that year, and corn production was 1,900 bushels. Though most of the county’s early residents engaged in stock raising, the census counted only 36 horses, 47 sheep, 160 milk cows, and 496 other cattle in the county that year.

County Histories

A History of Hamilton County, Texas, 1979 by the Hamilton County Historical Commission

Location

Hamilton, TX 31° 42′ 13.5576″ N, 98° 7′ 26.1228″ W

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