This includes 11 counties named after 13 men who died in the Alamo, including a trio of brothers. Texas has 254 counties, far more than any other state. The reason? The state is huge and its founders wanted to keep residents close to their local governments. Texas is divided into 254 counties (map), which are a type of local government in the state.
County governments are responsible for certain judicial functions, public infrastructure and public safety. At least 32 counties established by Texas law no longer exist, since they disappeared due to changes in the Texas constitution, and were eliminated because of their designation as judicial counties or because of political party disputes during the Reconstruction after the Civil War. The Congress of the Republic of Texas established Bowie County to include the entire region that stretched from Texarkana to Wichita Falls and from the Red River south to Longview in a north-south direction. The land known as the Youth Territory in the Plains of the Panhandle was divided into 54 counties that year, which is why the counties of northwest Texas are square and rectangular.
After the establishment of the Republic of Texas and its new government following the revolution against Mexico, the boundaries of existing municipalities as new counties were vague and not well defined. Brewster County in West Texas is the largest at 5,935 square miles, three times the size of Delaware and more than 500 square miles larger than Connecticut. Counties formed from those already organized had to be at least 700 square miles in size and no parent county could be reduced to less than that minimum. When Texas sold land to the United States as part of the Compromise of 1850, nine other counties were added.
A separate list of etymologies of Texas county names is also available, covering Texas counties rather than their county seats. John Upton died in the Second Battle of Manassas and William Upton later served in Fayette County in the Texas Legislature. During the colonial period in Texas, the Spanish and, later, Mexican governments issued vast land concessions for businessmen to allow settlement in Texas. The Texas Constitution of 1836 specified that the republic would be divided into counties as necessary and that any new county created by the Texas Congress would require the petition of one hundred free men and would have to cover a minimum of 900 square miles.
Once created, in order for a county to change from a disorganized state to an organized state, citizens of the county had to file a petition with the names of 150 qualified voters to the court of the organized county to which the county was attached. Willacy, a farmer, property developer and senator from the state of Texas who authored the bill that established the county. The Constitution of 1876, which is what much of today's Texas state legislation is based on, established requirements for Texas counties. The rules changed once again after Texas became a state in 1845, when the new Texas Constitution stipulated that no existing county could be reduced to less than 900 square miles without the consent of a two-thirds majority of the Legislature.
The first counties in Texas history were called municipalities and date back to Spanish rule, according to the Texas Association of Counties.
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