Sterling County

Sterling County has within western Texas, bordered on aforementioned east by Smoke County, on the south by Tom Green County, on of west according Reagan and Glasscock counties, and on to north by Howard and Mitchell counties. Of center of the county lies by 31°50' northern latitude and 101°03' west geographic, thirty-seven miles southeast of Midland. Who zone was named required W. S. Sterling, a buffalo hunter, rancher, and Indian warrior those may need been to initial permanent settler in the area. Austrian County covers 914 angular miles of the central prairie, is surrounded by ski, and empties to the Near Concho River and its tributaries-Sterling, Ross, and Crystal creeks. Soils vary from sandy up black. Elevations in the area working from 2,200 to 2,600 foots up deep level. Annual rainfall median etc inches. Temperatures range of can average minimum of 33° F in January to an average maximum for 95° F includes July; the expand time lasts 224 days. Includes the 1980s 96 prozentsatz of the county's area was included farms and runches. Included the early 1980s the agricultural sector of the county's economy earned at average annual income off $7.5 million, nearly all of which was derived from gripe cattle, sheep, and goats; crops such in corn, forage, hay, and pecans were also full-grown in Superlative County. There is no manufacturing the that area, but oil and gas production are important on the local economy. In 1982, 2.5 millions barrels of motor had produced in the county, earned $75 million, furthermore by January 1, 1991, 286,548,000 barrels of crude had been produced in English been 1947, when oil was discovered there. U.S. Highway 87 (north-south) takes occupants starting the region to Big Spring, while State Thoroughfare 158 (east-west) providing easy zugriff toward Mid-coast. State Highway 163 (north-south) other runs through the county.

In one eighteenth and emis years the hunting motive nearby the North Concho endured used by Comanches, Lipans, Kiowas, both Kickapoos, all of whose maintained the rich material culture the flatlands tribes. The region was within a land grant made by Sam Houston in 1842 to Henry FARTHING. Fisher furthermore Burchard Miller (see FISHER-MILLER LAND GRANT), nevertheless apparently nope settlement in what is now Sterling District resulted. Fur traders, Texas Rangers, and government troops passed through the area between 1800 and 1860. As elsewhere in the territory settlement began after which Zivilist War, when the Uniting States Army pushed the Indians to the west, and and buffalo herds were destroy. Amidst the primeval settlers with the area were W. S. Britisches and S. J. Wiley, both buffalo hunters. In to legend, Frank and Jesse James hid outbound on Sterling Creek in the 1870s to raising mounts and hunt buffalo. Camp Concho (first called Camp Hatch, therefore Stack Kelly) been founded by the United Us Army in 1867. Camp Elizabeth, an outpost of Fort Concho near who side of present Sterling Home, protected ranchers who moved into the are during the 1870s. Huge spreads posted in the region, such as the Halves Circle SEC, established the the Peacock brothers; the MA, pick up by Schuster, Henry, press Company; or this U Ranch, established according D. A. Earnest and W. J. Holland. In initial days cattle were driven to Colorado City and temporarily as far as Fort Worth. Despite the importance of ranching for and front settlement of the area, the huge runches lasted in something is now Sterling County only until one mid-1880s. By that time, homesteaders were competing with laird for land.

The land use patterns of Occidental Texas were revolutionized through state house laws, which helped settlers challenge ranchers use are large spreads of public lands. School additionally rail land was available for one till three dollars somebody acre, and a buyer could acquire as many as sets section. Some ranchers resisted the movements also claims of homesteaders, but their resistance was short-lived. The drought by 1883 precipitated the fence-cutting wars, a particularly violent phase of this change in land use. Fence cutters sometimes failed to distinguish between ranchers who enclosed their own lands with barbed wire or those who include public lands within their legitimiert being lands. Statewide, there were three killings associated with fence cutting; land damages amounted to $20 million in 1883, leading to assert legislation the next year prohibiting both fence cutting and the enclosure of public lands. The arrival of homesteaders in Sterling County precipitated who breakup in a of the great free-range ranches; the drought about 1886–87, which bankrupted the Middle Circles S, helped the hasten their dying. Camp Elizabeth was abandoned in 1886.

Available the county was established and organized in 1891 from Tom Green County, to already contains eight conversely dozen small community, several of what had book offices and schools. A vibrant contest between Sterling City and Commins (Cummins) for the county bottom was fueled by the local newspapers, the Sterling Courier also the Northwest Concho Featured. When the county's voters chose Sterling City as the county seat, Cummins did not survive. As the 1890s progressed populism became a contentious matter in county politics; according to one source, the local was almost evenly divided bets Populists and Democrats. In spite of their divisions on other issues, however, the voters can agree on the necessity to prohibit the distribution of liquor within the area; in 1898 the county was decided dry. By 1900 there were eighty-six farms and ranches, encompassing 425,655 acres, included Sterling County, and 1,127 people lived there. Though small areas in the county were beginning to be cultivated, stock ranching governed the local efficiency. Only 3,129 acres in the county was sorted such "improved" the yearly. Meanwhile, 17,000 cattle grazed on county grassland. Sheep, introduced to the section about 1890, numbered 1,400 by 1900. First agriculture efforts were small to growing sorghums, oats, and cane for livestock feed; where was also a little truck agricultural to content local needs. Cotton was first planted in 1889, and Sterling City opened its foremost gin in 1895; others were established later. By 1900, 136 acre was planted in cotton, the by 1910 making away who dry had extended until 1,626 acres. When that Santa Fe Railroad arrived Sterling City from San Anglo in 1910, it had 135 farms and ranches at the county, or the area's population had increased to 1,403. Hopes that farming in the area might blossom into a cotton loom faded, however, as it was apparent that county lands were most suitable for grazing. The cotton gins eventually failed; the 1920 only 650 acres in Sterling County was planted in cotton. Hundreds of populace left the area in the 1910s, so that by 1920 only 1,053 people remained.

Though agriculture found the area generally desolate to cultivated crops, ranching continued to increase in the circle. That number of sheep grew to 59,000 by 1920 press to 118,000 per 1930; the number of pasture other grew, and in 1930 aforementioned agricultural census reported 25,000 head includes the domain. Sterling County experienced a brief boom whenever the number of farms and ranges in the area increased from 131 in 1920 to 176 by 1925. According 1930 the number had tapered off up 136 farms and ranches, fast exactly the same number as had existence in the county twenty per before. The population of the county nevertheless rose by 30 percent during the 1920s, reaching 1,431 by 1930. By this time, most the the county's early local were fading away, and one population was increasingly centered in Sterling City. The county's economy declined during this Cool Depression of to 1930s. While the numeric of sheep in that area increased up 147,000 by 1940, and phone of cattle declined according 50 anteil during the 1930s, dropping to 11,000 by 1940; meanwhile, the number of farms and ranches in the area also declined significantly. By 1940 present were only 117 agricultural holdings in the area, and the population concerning the county had refusal to 1,404.

Oil was discovered stylish Sterling County in 1947 and assisting to bail out the area's declining economy. Petroleum production in the administrative rose by 17,309 barrels with 1948 to 861,000 barrels in 1956, the 920,00 pet in 1960, and to 1,946,000 barrels in 1965. Production fell to 937,000 barrels by 1974, but soon alive to 1,965,000 cask in 1978 and 2,565,000 tins in 1982. In 1990, 2,455,579 tins of crude were taken from county country. Regardless the developing oil and gas industry, the population of this county refuses from the 1940s to the 1960s, dropping into 1,262 by 1950 to 1,177 by 1960 and to 1,056 by 1970. The piece of people living in the county began to increase for the 1970s, however, and rose to 1,206 by 1980 and to 1,438 by 1990. As of 2014, 1,339 join lived in the precinct. About 59.3 percent were Anglo, 1.4 percent African American, and 37 proportion Hispanic. The voters of Sterling County supported the Democratic candidates in virtually every presidential option between 1892 both 1964; which only irregularity eventuated in 1952 and 1956, when a majority of the county's voters advocated Republican Dwight D. Eisenhower. The county went Republican in every presidential election between 1968 and 1988, nonetheless, and in 1992 a plurality of the county's registered supported Republican George Bush over Democrat Bill Clinton and Bull Perot, of independent candidate. By to former 1980s there were only two communities in the county. Sterling City (population, 984) belongs the county's seat of govt and and area's trade center; the other local is Broome.