Jack Co., TX - History - Jack County Organized 50 Years Ago in 1907 ******************************************************** This file was contributed for use in the USGenWeb by: Dorman Holub USGenWeb Archives. Copyright. All rights reserved http://www.usgwarchives.net/copyright.htm ******************************************************** Jack County Organized 50 Years Ago in 1907 Jacskboro Gazette Ð 1907 JACK COUNTY ORGANIZED FIFTY YEARS AGO TODAY The first election in Jack county was held 50 years ago today. By this election the county seat was located at Jacksboro, then called Mesquiteville, and the first officers of Jack County were elected. There are only two voters now residing in Jack county where were then and voted in that election, W.C. Kutch and William Hensley. Jack county was named in honor of William H. Jack and his brother [Patrick C. Jack], noted and brilliant patriots of Texas. The county was created by an act of the legislature approved August 27, 1856. By this act James W. Terry, E. Coker and Rad Ellis were appointed commissioners to organize the county on the third day of the next October, by ordering an election; the act also provided to select a location for the county seat to be called Mesquiteville. These commissioners failed to act and an election was not held until 1857 when Daniel Kutch, Charles McQuerry and Robert Carson acting as commissioners, ordered an election to be held on the July 4, 1857. The election was held at the time appointed, and was celebrated with a Ògrand barbecue.Ó Robert Carson was elected chief justice; B.L. Ham, Preston K. Phoenix, Charles Adair and A.B. Van Cleve, county commissioners; T. Jeff Reagan, county clerk; B.F.[Fred] Speer, sheriff. The first court was held in the house of T.S. Nettles, the place now owned by Charles Swan on Salt Creek, on July 22, 1857. The second session of the county court convened in the house of P.K. Phoenix and continued to convene there until the October term when the seat of justice was moved to the town of Mesquiteville. The nearest newspapers at that time were the Dallas Herald of Dallas and the Clarksvillle Standard of Clarksville, where the legal notices by order of court were published. The seventh legislature passed an act, approved February 6th, legalizing the elections and changing the name of the county seat from Mesquiteville to Jacksboro. Thomas W. Williams had the frame work ready and split oak boards shaved ready to build a house and as soon as the county seat was located he built his house, which was the first one built in Jacksboro, and stood on the northwest corner of the square until in the 1880s, when it was removed to give place to a business house built by D.C. Brown, which in turn gave place to the present stone building of Aynes Dry Goods Co. At the time when the county was organized the Indians were a peaceable and friendly, and the population increased rapidly soon running up to about 2,000. Then troubles came with the Indians and with savage Kiowas and Comanches raiding the frontier for about 12 years the settlements north and west of Jack county were virtually wiped out and Jack county stood out on the extreme broder, and by 1870 the population had gone down to less than 700. The last Indian raid was in May, 1874, when six out of seven of them were killed. When Jame B. Dosier and John Wood, new-comers to Parker county, went out in the latter part of 1854, on a hunting excursion and came into the Keechi Valley they struck their El Dorado, and went no further, but returned to their families with the report of the beautiful country they had found. They provided themselves with tools and the necessary held and returned to the Keechi near the mouth of Salt Creek, where they built each a house, and on Feb. 1, 1855, they moved their families into their respective homes. Jack county in those days was an ideal land for the home seeker, the Keechi valley especially so with its luxuriant mesquite grass and sparkling streams of clear pure water. From then until about 15 years ago Jack county was considered one of the finest cattle countries in the world, and after that period the condition of the county was very unsettled, the cattlemen claiming that it would never be a farming country. Many of the farmers became discouraged and sold to the cattle men. The range was then put to such a severe test that it was almost ruined between overstocking and a long drouth, many cattle had to be moved out and never since that time have the cattle men held precedence over the farmer. During 1906, there has developed a great change, a spirit of progressiveness has taken hold of the people and today Jack County is one of the best farming sections in Texas, as it produces a greater variety of valuable crops than any other county and last year its cotton production beat the great Òblack land belt,Ó which had always been considered the finest in Texas. Its mineral wealth is also considered very valuable, and is being developed as fast as men and capital can do the work. Its coal, limestone, oil, salt and mineral waters are the equal of any. Jack is certainly destined to be one of the wealthiest counties of the Lone Star State. The accompanying cut is from a photograph of Mr. WoodÕs house [too dark to use] as it stands today, 52 years after it was built. The original roof was of clap boards with weight poles to hold iit down. John Wood was born in Alabama, raised and married in Tennessee to Miss Nancy Lockard, where their two oldest children were born, James R. the second. From Tennessee they removed to Arkansas where they lived a short time, then coming to Texas, arriving in Parker county late in 1854, and on February 1st, moved into his new home, and lived here through all the Indian troubles from 1860 to 1874, and died at his home, near where the first house was built, in September 1903, in his 83rd year. Mrs. Wood died in April, 1907, in her 83rd year.