Hays County covers an area of 693.5 square miles in south-central Texas; the county center is 98°00' west longitude and 30°00' north latitude, twenty-three miles southwest of Austin. The county is located on the border between the Edwards Plateau and the southern Black Prairie region. The county is named after John Coffee Hays, a Texas park ranger and Mexican-American war officer. Hays County has been inhabited for thousands of years.
Evidence of Paleo-Indians found in the region dates back to 6000 BC. C. Archaeological evidence of native agriculture dates back to 1200 AD. The county's population was distributed as 24.50% under the age of 18, 20.50% from 18 to 24, 28.20% from 25 to 44, 19.10% from 45 to 64, and 7.70% from 65 years of age or older.
The median age was 28 years. For every 100 females, there were 101.30 males. For every 100 females age 18 and over, there were 99.50 males. Democratic voters primarily reside along the I-35 Corridor and the communities of.
Communities west of the I-35 corridor lean toward Republicans. San Marcos, home of Texas State University, and the city of Kyle generally vote for Democrats. Buda, Dripping Springs and Wimberley generally vote for Republicans. The Balcones escarpment divides it into mountainous, tree-covered ranches in three-quarters of the northwest and grassy agricultural plains in the southeastern quarter.
The main natural grasses are the large blue stalk and indigenous grass; the trees commonly associated with Central Texas, including live oak, cedar, walnut and mesquite, are native to Hays County. The elevation rises from east to west, ranging from 600 to over 1,400 feet. The county's many streams generally flow in an eastward direction; the main waterways are the Bear, Cypress and Onion streams and the Blanco and San Marcos rivers. The Edwards aquifer is located below the east, where San Marcos Springs, the second largest in Texas, produces about 160 cubic feet per second.
The soil ranges from fine limestone to black, waxy, chocolate and gray marl. The average annual rainfall is 33.75 inches. The average maximum temperature in July is 96° F; the average minimum temperature in January is 40°. Hays County has a 254-day growing season.
Hays County's first settlers were a mix of old Texans and immigrants from Georgia and Arkansas. With the advent of the Civil War, most residents were in favor of secession. Woods's thirty-sixth Texas cavalry regiment was organized at Camp Clark, in neighboring Guadalupe County, in 1862; Company A consisted primarily of men from Hays County. During the war, county meat helped feed Confederate forces.
Soon after the end of the war, Col. Snyder, a Georgian, created Hays County's first newspaper, the Pioneer. During the Reconstruction, a Ku Klux Klan group was formed and, in May 1876, a military organization, the San Marcos Greys, was formed. On March 1, 1848, the state legislature formed Hays County from the territory that was formerly part of Travis County.
The ethnic and racial makeup of Hays County is difficult to document accurately, but certain general features emerge from the county's census history. Since the turn of the century, Hays County has enjoyed a steady influx of tourists attracted by the caves, springs and spas of Wimberley and San Marcos. Until the establishment of the Gary Job Corps Training Center on the site of the former Gary Air Force Base in 1964 and the increase in enrollment at San Marcos University, Hays County did not begin a period of steady growth, from 19,934 in 1960 to 27,642 in 1970, 40,594 in 1980 and 65,614 in 1990. Although Democrat Jimmy Carter won the majority there in 1976, Republican presidential candidates elected Hays County in nearly every election between 1980 and 2004.
The numbers for Texas counties, FIPS codes, public health regions, and health services regions are shown in the table below. The boundaries remained stable for nearly a century, until the re-establishment of the border between Hays-Travis County in 1955 added more than 16,000 acres to Hays County. For example, Ellis County is numbered before El Paso and counties that begin with Mc are numbered before all other counties that begin with M. If you sort a list of Texas counties by county name, the counties will not be ordered by county number.
However, like other suburban counties in the state, the county began to lean toward the Republican Party in the 1970s. Each of the 254 counties in Texas has a county number (also known as a county ID) assigned sequentially in alphabetical order. In 1880, the first Hays County railroad, built by the International-Great Northern Railroad, was completed to San Marcos from Austin; it was later extended to San Antonio. George Neill led the first herd of cattle from Hays County to Kansas in 1867, and other campaigns followed.
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