Parmer County, Texas

Cities, Towns and Communities

Black | Bovina | Farwell – county seat | Friona | Lazbuddie | Parmerton

History

Parmer County. All of Parmer County was included in the princely domain of the Capitol Syndicate Ranch, comprising 3,000,000 acres of land granted by the state in the early ’80s as payment for the erection of the splendid State House at Austin. This ranch also included one-eighth of the area of Bailey County, and half of Lamb County. Only in recent years has there been a gradual breaking up of this vast tract, and its corporate ownership and management furnishes an obvious explanation for the late development of Parmer County as compared with other neighboring sections of the great Panhandle district. The Pecos & Northern Texas Railway, a branch of the Santa Fe, was constructed across the county from northeast to southwest during the year 1898. In other counties the advent of the railroad has been accompanied by an immediate influx of settlers and a rapid development of agricultural resources. However, Parmer County, which in 1890 was credited with a population of seventy, in 1900 had only thirty-four inhabitants enumerated by the census, and only within the present decade has there come any considerable number of settlers. Population in 1910 was 1,555, and in 1920, 1,699. Under such conditions no county government was instituted until 1907, and except as a great cattle range Parmer County has been unimproved until within the last decade.

Location

Farwell, TX 34° 23′ 0.2724″ N, 103° 2′ 16.8072″ W

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