Live Oak County

Live Oak County went into the Civil War with 593 people, 85 of them enslaved, by the 1860 census. Of 150 voters, only nine opposed secession, and at least 114 residents swore allegiance to the Confederacy. The blockade and drought made the war hard, and ranchers drove herds to Mexico, learning routes they used for the cattle drives afterward. By 1870 it counted nearly 63,000 cattle, about triple the 1860 number, and by 1880 more than 58,000 sheep against 16,105 cattle.

What the plaque says

Live Oak County Created by legislature Feb. 2, 1856, and organized August 4 with Oakville as county seat. Formed from San Patricio and Nueces Counties. Named for its Live Oak trees. County seat moved, 1919, to George West on railroad. Center for ranching, farming, petroleum production and processing. Recreation areas include Tips State Park and Lake Corpus Christi. Historic sites are Fort Ramirez, first settlement; Fort Merrill, built 1850 to protect early settlers; Brownsville-San Antonio Oxcart Road, used by general Santa Anna on the way to the Alamo. Other sites marked.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Choke Canyon State Park — 19 mi
  A reservoir state park on the Frio River in two units, built after a 1982 dam, with birds, alligators and fishing on land people have crossed for more than 10,000 years.
• Lake Corpus Christi State Park — 22 mi
  A lake park in the South Texas brush country above Mathis, on a reservoir of the Nueces, with a Civilian Conservation Corps refectory and more than 200 bird species.
• Lipantitlán State Historic Site — 30 mi
  Five undeveloped acres on the Nueces named for the Lipan Apaches who camped here, where Mexico built an earth-and-rail fort that Texans took early in the Revolution.

More markers nearby

• Early Schools in Live Oak County — 1.5 mi
• City of George West — 1.8 mi
• Gussettville — 4.8 mi
• Site of Fort Merrill — 7.0 mi