Hemphill County

After 1900 the county's ranch economy widened. Farms and ranches grew from 76 in 1900 to 401 in 1930, and cotton went from 285 acres in 1920 to more than 17,100 in 1930, before the Depression and Dust Bowl cut it by half and the population fell. Oil was found in 1955, and output rose to more than 1.89 million barrels in 1978, briefly lifting the population above 5,000. By 2002 pasture covered 85 percent of the farm and ranch land, and livestock brought in nearly all farm income.

What the plaque says

Formed form Young and Bexar territories. Created August 21, 1876. Organized July 5, 1886. Named in honor of John Hemphill, 1809-1862. First Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of the State of Texas. Adjutant General of the Somervell Expedition. Member of the first State Constitutional Convention. Member of the United States Congress. Canadian, the county seat.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Canadian River Wagon Bridge — 0.4 mi
  The longest pin-connected bridge in Texas, 3,255 feet of Parker trusses across the Canadian River at Canadian, built for wagons in 1916 and reopened as a footpath in 2000.
• River Valley Pioneer Museum — 0.7 mi
  The Hemphill County museum in Canadian, a Santa Fe division town of 1887 on the river breaks that held one of the first commercial rodeos in Texas and voted itself dry in 1903.
• The Citadelle Art Museum — 0.9 mi
  A 1910 Baptist church saved from demolition in 1977, made into a family home filled with art, and given to Canadian in 2009 as one of the Panhandle's few art museums.
• Gene Howe Wildlife Management Area — 4.9 mi
  Five thousand acres of sand sage and cottonwood bottomland along the Canadian River east of Canadian, bought by the state in 1950 for wildlife research and open to walkers with a permit.

More markers nearby

• Robert R. Young — steps away
• Canadian River Trails — steps away
• Moody Hotel — 0.8 mi
• R. Dick Bussell — 0.8 mi