Ochiltree County

Ranching came late here. By 1885 Henry W. Cresswell had bought or leased most of the county and moved the Bar CC headquarters to Wolf Creek. After the blizzards of 1886 and 1887 smaller stock farmers took up land, and cattle numbers rose from 10,000 to 84,000 in the 1890s. Wheat followed the railroad in 1919, with almost 210,000 acres planted by 1930. Oil and gas found in 1951 brought a boom; the county had produced more than 156 million barrels by 2001, and in 2002 it ranked first in Texas for wheat acreage.

What the plaque says

Formed from Young & Bexar territories: Created, August 21, 1876 Organized, February 21, 1889 Named in honor of William Beck Ochiltree, 1811-1867, Associate Justice, Supreme Court of Texas, 1842, Secretary of the Treasury, 1844, the last Attorney General of the Republic of Texas, member of the Texas Legislature, 1855; delegate to the Secession Convention of 1861, colonel in the Confederate army. County Seat Ochiltree, 1889 Perryton, since 1920. (1936)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Museum of the Plains — steps away
  Perryton's four-acre museum of the wheat country at the top of Texas, with an 1899 depot, five historic buildings and a life-size Hank the Cowdog, whose author grew up here.

More markers nearby

• Gray Community Church — steps away
• George Morgan Perry — 1.1 mi
• Colonel William B. Ochiltree — 1.1 mi
• Ochiltree Townsite — 9.0 mi