Armstrong County

Even the county's name is uncertain: the Handbook of Texas says it honors one of several pioneer families named Armstrong, but the sources do not settle which. Palo Duro Canyon takes up most of the southern half of its 907 square miles, including the eastern end of the state park. Settlers came slowly. The census counted 31 residents in 1880 and 944 in 1890, when 104 ranches and farms covered more than 413,000 acres yet fewer than 100 acres grew grain. In 2005 ranches still occupied about 68 percent of the county's land.

What the plaque says

Armstrong County Created 1876. Name honors several Texas pioneers named Armstrong. Ranching became the chief industry when huge JA Ranch was established here in 1876. Farming was introduced after the railroad came through, 1887. County was organized in 1890. Present courthouse was built 1912. (1969)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Gem Theatre — steps away
  Claude's small-town movie house of 1915, restored by the Armstrong County Museum and remembered for the scene in Hud where Homer and Lonnie Bannon sing along to Clementine.
• Charles and Mary Ann Goodnight Ranch State Historic Site — 11 mi
  The two-story house the Goodnights moved into on December 27, 1887, after leaving the JA, with a porch that looks over bison descended from the calves Mary Ann saved.
• Carson County Square House Museum — 16 mi
  The 1880s ranch cottage that is the oldest house in the town of Panhandle, at the heart of a twenty-one-building museum of the plains from mammoth hunters to the oil boom.
• Lighthouse Trail — 21 mi
  The park's most walked trail, 2.8 miles each way across the canyon floor to the Lighthouse, a hoodoo of Triassic sandstone balanced on a pedestal of softer red shale.

More markers nearby

• Dr. and Mrs. Wm. A. Warner — steps away
• Route of Coronado Expedition — steps away
• Town of Claude — steps away
• Boy Scout Troop No. 17 — steps away