Frio County, Texas History
Submitted 11/98 by John Hawley  KICKHOME@aol.com   

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FRIO COUNTY HISTORY


The following information was taken from "The New Handbook of Texas,"
published in 1996 by the Texas State Historical Society. This six volume
edition is located in most Texas Libraries. 

Frio County in the Winter Garden Region of Southwest Texas, shares its borders
with LaSalle, Zavala, Medina, and Atascosa Counties. The county is named
after the Frio River, which flows northwest to southeast through the county.
Pearsall, the county seat is located on the Missouri Pacific Railroad fifty
miles southwest of San Antonio and seventy miles east of the United States -
Mexican border at Eagle Pass. Interstate Highway 35 passes north to south
through the communities of Moore, Pearsall, and Dilley. The county's center
lies two miles southwest of downtown Pearsall near 28o 52' north latitude and
99o 07' west longitude. Frio county comprises 719,360 acres or 1,133 square
mile. The county is in the Nueces River basin and is drained by the Frio and
Leona rivers in the west and by San Miguel Creek in the east.

The county terrain of flat to slightly undulating plains is surfaced by deep
to moderately deep, light-colored loam and underlain by limestone and
calcareous to neutral clayey subsoils. Hickory, oak, brush, mesquite,
huisache, prickly pear, and grasses predominate in the flora. Elevations
average 600 feet above sea level and range from 400 feet in far south central
Frio County to 800 feet at the summit of Pilot Knob in the northwest. As much
as fifty percent of the county is prime farm land.

Wildlife in the county in the 1980s not subject not subject to hunting
regulations included javelinas, coyotes, bobcats, and squirrels; those subject
to hunting regulations include: quail, muskrats, beavers, opossums, ring-
tailed cats, badgers, foxes, weasels, raccoons, skunks, civet cats, turkeys,
sandhill cranes, ducks, coots, geese, woodcock, jacksnipes, and mourning and
white-winged doves. Wildlife in the county when its first settlers arrive in
the mid-nineteenth century included mustangs, mountain lions, black bears, and
an abundance of wolves whose behavior apparently aided in predicting cold
spells. Buffalo and antelope were present as well as large numbers of
whitetail deer. Feral longhorn cattle roamed the area. 

Few people settled in the county before the Civil War because Commanche
mustangers frequented the region. One of the first people to settle
permanently in Frio County was Ben Duncan, who arrived in 1856, and one of the
first to ranch the area was James Berry (ca 1860). In 1860 eleven families of
white settlers and two blacks made up the population of forty-two, three
families were living on the Leona River near the Frio-Zavala county line.
Early settlers included Mexican War veterans Benjamin Slaughter, William A.A.
"Big Foot" Wallace, and James W. Winters.

Frio County was formed by the Texas legislature from parts of Atascosa, Bexar
and Uvalde counties on February 1, 1958, but was not organized until May 22,
1871. In addition the county remained under the jurisdiction of Bexar County.
In accordance with the 1871 legislative mandate the county seat was named Frio
and located on the William Eastwood Rancho near Presidio Road Crossing. This
site was chosen because of the promise of irrigated farming offered by the
Frio River, as well as the townsite's proximity to the Presidio Road.
Elections for the county's first justices of the peace were held at the ranch
between July 17 and 20, 1871.

The decade between 1870 and 1880 was a period of rapid development. The
county population rose dramatically from a reported 309 in 18700 to 2,130 in
1880. The fourteen farmers reported as operating in the Siestadera-Bigfoot
area of northeastern Frio County in 1870 were actually stock raisers of cattle
or sheep; farmers raised small vegetable gardens and some corn production for
domestic consumption. Frio City developed as a "cowboy capital" and outpost
cultural center of Southwest Texas during the 1870; ranchers in the area
controlled huge numbers of cattle on expansive landholdings. Other
settlements developed at Big Foot, Moore, Hollow, Brummet, and Tehuacana in
the northeastern part of the country; Bennett Settlement and Bishop Hollow in
the southwestern part of the county: and Todos Santos in the western part of
the county. Although the county was expanding rapidly, the frequency of
Commanche raids led to the establishment in 1876 of Ranger Camp, commanded by
Maj. John Bones, on Elm Creek three miles southwest of Frio City. The last
Indian disturbance in the county occurred in 1877.

In 1871 the county opened its first road, which began at Frio City and crossed
Seco Creek on its way to Castroville. Previously the Old Presidio Road and
the Fort Ewell Road, little more than prairie trails, were the only roads in
the county. Between 1876 and 1880 new roads led to markets at Laredo, San
Antonio, and Pleasanton.

Fencing of range and pastureland and the arrival of the International-Great
Northern Railroad in the early 1880s fostered the growth of what were to
become Frio County's major townships, changed its political make-up,
structurally modeled its transportation system, greatly altered its cattle
industry, and added impetus to its embryonic farming industry. Established at
fifteen mile intervals along the I-GN, the communities of Moore, Pearsall,
and Dilley rapidly expanded beyond their original railroad depots and cattle-
holding pens.

An attempt to choose a county seat closer to the center of the county than
Frio City was defeated in September 1877. Six years later county voters
approved making Pearsall the county seat by a vote of 237 to 81. The first
term of the county commissioner's court held in Pearsall began on August 27,
1883. During the summer of 1883 a general exodus from Frio City to Pearsall
left the former with only five home and two businesses. It was soon a ghost
town. Roads from Pearsall were constructed north and south along the
railroads, to Bigfoot, Orelia, Loma Vista, and Tehuacana. Roads were added
from Dilley and Bigfoot. Roads from Moore connected with Bigfoot and
Tehuacana. Iron bridges were constructed across rivers and creeks beginning
in 1887; by 1892 as many as ten iron bridges had been built in the county's
road system.

With the advent of fencing in the 1870s, large portions of rangeland were
enclosed with barbed wire. Improved breeds of beef cattle were introduced,
and new and improved feed crops were grown to augment the range forage for the
more valuable range livestock. Ranchers shipped their cattle by rail.
Notable early ranch brands include the Heart, the T Diamond, the ZH, and the
UL Bar.

The railroads provided better markets for produce, and farming became more
viable; experienced farmers arrived looking for farms as small as 160 acres.
The land in the north central part of the county, formerly part of Henri
Castro's grant, was divided into tracts of 160, 320, and 640 acres. The sale
of the Frio County school lands during the 1890s threw open more land for
farming.

Between 1880 and 1900 the population of the county grew from 2,130 to 4,200,
improved acreage increased from 8,000 acres to 33,105 acres, acreage devoted
to cotton production increased from 543 acres to 13,764 acres, and honey
production jumped from an annual production of 1,930 pounds in 1880 to 35,400
pounds in 1900. The population increased from 4,200 in 1900 to 8,895 in 1910;
large numbers of people moved to the county from San Antonio. Of the total
county population of 8,895 reported in 1910, 2397 were of Mexican descent.

The earliest settlers in the county had encountered a luxuriant growth of sage
grass. The wide spread use of prairie lands as pasture for cattle raising
greatly reduced the grasses and precipitated the proliferation of cactus and
brush. In order to sustain herds during times of drought many ranchers
permitted their cattle to eat the water-rich prickly pear cactus, the thorns
of which unfortunately gave the cattle soremouth. A pear-burner patented by
Bigfoot resident John Bunyan Blackwell gained wide-spread use, and a plant to
manufacture it was opened. A further result of grassland depletion and
erosion was the accumulations of silt, which caused small lakes and streams
throughout the region to dry up. By 1930 ranchers grazed beef steers, since
the encroaching brush had made the land less suitable for breeding purposes. 

In 1929 most farm laborers in Frio County were Mexican migrant workers, who
harvested cotton, spinach, and onion on a contract basis. Monthly laborers
were paid from twenty-five to forty dollars, with houses furnished. Ranches
ranged in size from 1,000 to 65,000 acres and averaged about 5,000 acres.
Beef cattle were predominantly high-grade Herefords, and most of the dairy
cows were purchased Jerseys or Holsteins. Ranches were smaller and fenced
into pastures. Steers were sold as feeders on the Fort Worth and Kansas City
markets, Angora goats, whose diet included the abundant huajillo and black
chaparral, accounted for 10, 481 of the 16, 796 goats raised in the county in
1930. Truck crops were grown where irrigation water was available. The
fruit-growing industry at this time was in the experimental stage.

The Rural Electrification Administration set up electric co-ops to provide
service to farms and ranches. The Medina Electric Co-op was formed under the
provisions of this law in 1939 and in 1941 initiated service in Frio County.
About 1963 the co-op built a 75,000 kilowatt steam generating station just
north of Pearsall.

As early as 1930 N.H. Hunt, A&M county agent for Frio County from 1934 to
1958, promoted the cultivation of peanuts as a substitute for cotton. By 1970
peanuts were Frio County's largest money crop; income from peanut culture was
$5,776,900 and that from cattle was $3,276,000. Peanut production in 1982
amounted to 50, 230,224 pounds, making Frio County the largest producer of
peanuts in Texas at that time.

In 1949 peanut production covered 19,780 acres, and watermelons 7,042. In
1950, 20 percent of the county's total acreage supported 600 farms; corn was
cultivated on 10,426 acres. By 1951 farmers were practicing diversification
and double cropping on mechanized farms. Tractors increased in numbers from
206 in 1940 to 656 in 1950. Other agricultural machinery, such as the squeeze
chute and the labor-saving peanut combine, which was developed by a Frio
County farmer, helped reduce the cost of farming and ranching in the county.
Frio County was one of the leading honey-producing counties in Texas in 1950,
when 640,237 pounds was marketed. The native huajillo, whitebrush, and
catclaw, as well as the cultivated citrus, were sources of nectar.

By 1970 small farms were no longer prevalent in Frio County. The use of
expensive farm machinery had forced average farm acreage to expand to meet the
payments necessary to operate profitable farms. The 73,884 acres of harvested
cropland included 30,076 planted in sorghum, 17,596 in peanuts, and 10,208 in
melons and vegetables. In 1982 the county produced more than 23,262 tons of
watermelons; Frio County was thus the top producer in Texas at that time.

Interstate Highway 81, also known as the Pan-American Highway, became the
first paved road in Frio County in 1926. Two years later a highway from
Dilley to Eagle Pass was completed. In 1941 the state legislature supplied
the funds to construct Farm roads 1582, 1465, 1581, and 1853. The road from
Pearsall to Charlotte was completed in 1946. By 1953 seventy-six miles of
farm roads had been paved in the county. In 1968 that portion of Interstate
Highway 35 that paralleled Highway 81 and the Missouri Pacific was completed.

The county's first school, according to records taken in February of 1873, was
housed in the county courthouse. Freemasons provided school benches for a
public school in Frio Town in 1876. In 1878 the county commissioner set aside
land to provide a permanent school fund, making Frio County one of the few
counties in Texas with such a fund. By the end of 1878 at least twelve
schools has been established in the county. Professor B.C. Hendricks and his
wife established the first private school in the county at Frio Town around
1880 and thecounty's only school of higher education, Hendrick College, in
Pearsall around 1886. The county commissioner established ten school
districts in May 1884. In 1891 Pearsall became the first independently
incorporated school district in the county; by 1892 Frio County had twenty-
three schools in eleven common-school districts, a majority of which were
consolidated with the Dilley and Pearsall districts in 1949 and 1950. The
percentage of high school and college educated adults over twenty-five rose
from 7 percent in 1950 to 11 percent in 1960. In 1982 Frio County had three
elementary, two middle, and two high schools in two school districts; 204
teachers taught an average daily student body of 3,347, 83 percent of whom
were Spanish surnamed. The same year a reported 50 percent of all adults
twenty-five or older in the county had attained a high school (40 percent) or
college education (10 percent).

The religious needs of the pioneer settlers of Frio County were served by
circuit riders such as Rev. William Monk, John W. DeVilbiss, W.C. Newton, and
the "fighting pardon," Andrew J. Potter. In June 1880 several men journeyed
to Frio City and organized the Rio Grande Baptist Association, the county's
first religious organization. In 1982 Frio County had twenty-five churches,
mostly Catholic, Southern Baptist, and United Methodist, and an estimated
total membership of 8,271.

Oil reserves in Frio County were first exploited around 1930 by the Amerada
Petroleum Corporation; by 1936 Amerada had more than 85,000 acres leased for
oil exploration. Oil production was 2,334 barrels in 1942, 448,499 barrels in
1948, and by 1952, when over 100 wells operated in both the Pearsall and
Bigfoot fields, it had reached 1,505,740 barrels. In 1966 Frio County had
more than 600 producing oil and gas wells. Annual oil and natural gas
production in the early 1980s averaged around three million barrels and 1.75
million cubic feet respectively.

By 1989 the Bigfoot field in northwest Frio County had produced twenty-nine
million barrels of oil, and Pearsall field in west central Frio County had
produced sixty million barrels; these two fields were among the most
productive oilfields in the San Antonio Oil and Gas District. In 1989
agribusiness and the oil business remained the dominant economic enterprises
in the county. Farmers and ranchers of Frio County made $41,705,000 in 1989. 

{end}