Delta County

The county exists because people between two rivers tired of crossing them. Residents petitioned in 1868 for a county drawn from parts of Hopkins, Lamar, Hunt and Fannin, since the old county seats lay across flooded streams and poor roads. The legislature agreed on July 29, 1870, but dropped Hunt and Fannin because neither wished to be included. Governor Edmund J. Davis named five commissioners, and Cooper was laid out between the Sulphur forks. Politics stayed divided: in 1872 Horace Greeley took half the vote and Ulysses S. Grant forty percent.

What the plaque says

Delta County Formed from Lamar and Hopkins counties. Created July 29, 1870. Organized October 6, 1870. The name describes its position and triangular shape. Cooper, the county seat

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Cooper Lake State Park — 1.6 mi
  Two units on Jim Chapman Lake, a Corps reservoir proposed in the late 1930s, stalled by a lawsuit until 1984 and dedicated in 1991, with a 10.5-mile equestrian trail and wildlife land around it.
• Evergreen Cemetery — 20 mi
  Paris's town cemetery since 1866, with a carved-stone gallery that includes the Babcock monument in cowboy boots, and the grave of the three-year-old whose death led to the 1893 lynching of Henry Smith.
• Eiffel Tower — 20 mi
  A 65-foot Eiffel Tower with a red cowboy hat, built by the local welders' union in 1993 beside Paris's Love Civic Center.
• Sam Bell Maxey House State Historic Site — 21 mi
  The Italian-villa-style house in Paris, finished in 1868 with a lawyer's fees, where a Confederate major general turned U.S. senator and two later generations of his family lived.

More markers nearby

• Texas Livery Stable — 1.4 mi
• DeSpain Bridge — 3.4 mi
• Amy Settlement — 3.8 mi
• Enloe United Methodist Church — 4.3 mi