Lipscomb County

Lipscomb County, located in the far northeastern corner of the Panhandle, is surrounded on the north and east by Oklahoma, on the south by Hemphill County, and on the west by Ochiltree County. It is in the rolling plains part of the Panhandle, east of the Texas High Plains. Lipscomb, the county seat, is near the center of the county and 128 miles northeast of Amarillo.

Cities, Towns & Communities

Booker (partly in Ochiltree County) | Darrouzett | Dominion | Follett | Higgins | Kiowa Lipscomb – county seat | Timms City

History

Lipscomb County was formed by the Texas legislature in 1876 from the Bexar District. The county’s first settler was Alex Young, a small-scale rancher who settled on Kiowa Creek in 1877. Later that same year Henry W. Cresswell‘s huge CC Ranch (centered in Roberts and OchiltreeCounties) spilled into the western portion of Lipscomb County. Soon other large ranches appeared: the Seven K, the DAY, the Box T, and the YL all occupied large portions of the county by the end of 1878. These ranches dominated the county for almost a decade, until the coming of the railroad in 1887 encouraged settlers to move into the area. In 1887 the Southern Kansas Railway of Texas, a Santa Fe subsidiary, extended a line from Kiowa, Kansas, to Panhandle, Texas. It crossed the southeast corner of Lipscomb County, gave local ranchers access to rail connections, and afforded farmers and small stockmen access to the farmlands in the county. The first town in the county, Lipscomb, was platted in 1887 in anticipation of the arrival of the railroad. When it was learned that the railroad would miss the site, local residents decided to protect their town by making it the county seat. As a result, the populace voted to organize the county in June of 1887 with Lipscomb as the county seat. When the railroad entered the county later in the year, land promoters laid out Higgins on the right-of-way. Higgins soon grew into the county’s largest town and trade center, but Lipscomb remained the county seat. 

Lipscomb County History 1922. Lipscomb County occupies the northeast corner of the Panhandle. and is bounded on two sides by the State of Oklahoma. In earlier years what was known as No Man’s Land of Indian Territory lay on the north, and the Cherokee strip of Indian Territory on the east. Until about 1890 no white settlements were permitted in these adjoining sections, and that was a fact which seriously impeded the settlement not only of Lipscomb County, but of other sections of the Panhandle. It was the building of the Southern Kansas Railroad across that section of Oklahoma and into the Panhandle in 1887 that more than anything else influenced immigration and settlement. Beginning with the railroad era, Lipscomb County advanced from a population of only 69 in 1880 to 632 in 1890, and in 1887 county government was organized. The population of the county in 1900 was 790, in 1910. 2,634, in 1920, 3,634. The assessed wealth of the county in 1903 was $1,223,525, in 1913, $3,616,250, in 1920, $4,983,150.

Location

Lipscomb, TX 36° 14′ 0.1356″ N, 100° 16′ 15.4812″ W

See map: Google Maps, Yahoo! Maps, MapQuest