Panola County, Texas

Panola County Courthouse
administration
US state :	Texas
Administrative headquarters :	Carthage
Address of the administrative headquarters:	Panola County Courthouse Courthouse Building Carthage, TX 75633-2687
Foundation :	1846
Made up from:	Harrison County Shelby County
Area code :	001 903
Demographics
Residents :	23,796  (2010)
Population density :	11.5 inhabitants / km 2
geography
Total area :	2127 km²
Water surface :	53 km²
map
Website : www.co.panola.tx.us

Panola Street in Carthage

The Panola County is a county in the northeast, on the border with Louisiana park of the US - the State of Texas . The county seat is in Carthage . The county, whose name is derived from the Cherokee word for " cotton ", is a dry county , which means that the sale of alcohol is restricted or prohibited.

geography

The county is located in northeast Texas on the border with Louisiana and has an area of ​​2,127 square kilometers, of which 53 square kilometers are water. Neighboring counties clockwise are Shelby in the south, Rusk in the west, Harrison in the north and the two Louisiana Parishes Caddo in the northeast and De Soto in the east. Geographically, the terrain is on the edge of the Arkansas Timberlands , in a large landscape in the transition zone between the forest zone of the eastern USA and the prairies of the Midwest. The landscape is largely flat and characterized by forest and agricultural areas. The soil consists mainly of sandy loam with a loam underground. The tree population includes pines , oaks and elms, as well as maple and hickory trees . There are also cedars , magnolia trees and holly trees . The forests are rich in small game - including deer , squirrels , quail and wild turkeys . The most important river is the Sabine River , which marks the border with Louisiana to the southeast corner of the county and runs upstream in a northerly direction across the county. Man-made bodies of water are Lake Murvaul in the south of the county and Martin Lake on the western border with Rush County. Natural freshwater lakes are Hendrick's Lake, Hill's Lake, Clear Lake, and Fish Lake.

The climate is - - as in the entire southeastern United States subtropical coined. The average minimum temperatures in January are slightly above freezing point . The average high in July is 34.4 ° C. The growing season lasts 240 days. The annual average rainfall is 1104 millimeters. The most important and also dominating city with over 6500 inhabitants is the administrative center of Carthage, located in the center of the county. Independent cities and towns are also Beckville (847 inhabitants), Tatum (1385 inhabitants) , partly in Rusk County, and Gary City (311 inhabitants). There are also seven non-incorporated parishes that are co-administered by the county. Important transport links are the Interstate 369, the federal highways US 59 and US 79 and State Highways 43, 149 and 315 . In addition, there are several Farm to Market Roads in the county , most of which are relatively short and mainly serve to connect farms and ranches to the nearest market places .

history

State border between Mexico and the USA 1824

Sam Houston (around 1860)

Before the European development of the continent , the area was in the catchment area of ​​the Mississippi culture - an Indian high culture whose center was the central Mississippi Valley. The predominant Indian tribes belonged to the Confederation of Caddo Tribes . The first colonial power in the region was Spain . As early as the 17th century , the Spaniards laid claim to the entire territory from Texas to the Sabine River. France emerged as the second colonial power in the region . The explorer Robert Cavelier de La Salle explored the Mississippi down to its mouth in 1682. In the 18th century , the area between the Mississippi and the Rocky Mountains , which originally belonged to the French colonial empire, was temporarily part of Spain and then back to France. Napoleon finally ceded it to the United States in the course of the Louisiana Purchase in 1803. The USA and Spain settled conflicts over the exact border between Louisiana and Texas with the help of a provisional solution - the so-called Neutral Ground , a settlement-free zone east of the Sabine River in what is now the US state of Louisiana. The negotiated buffer zone - according to the agreement - was to remain in place until a final solution was found.

The first settlers in what would become Panola County settled in the early 1930s. The earliest known white settlement in the area was founded in 1833 by Daniel Martin. Martin's family had moved here from Missouri to join Stephen F. Austin's colony in Texas. Another early settler was Isaac Reed, who settled in the Clayton area. More settlers came in the course of the Texan War of Independence against Mexico in 1836. After the end of the War of Independence, around 50 families lived in the region. The majority of the newcomers were from Tennessee , North Carolina , South Carolina, and Alabama . With them slavery found its way into the area. In 1846 the number of slaves was 574. In the 1840s, the border between the United States and the newly created Republic of Texas was readjusted. A commission made up of representatives from both countries precisely defined the border marking and marked it with a granite stone. The area to the west of it was designated as part of Texas, that to the east as the area of ​​the USA. To this day, this historic boundary stone marks the boundary between Panola County and De Soto Parish, which belongs to Louisiana.

Cotton - for a long time one of the most important crops

Oil refinery near Carthage (1949)

In the 1840s, the area was affected by a ramified feud - the so-called Regulator-Moderator War . The background to their outbreak was the fact that the Neutral Ground Zone had increasingly developed into a retreat for outlaws and adventurers since it was founded . The trigger of the conflict, which lasted over four years, was unresolved border disputes. The border war affected several counties in the region. Both parties - regulators and moderators - set up armed vigilante groups , each trying to wrestle the other side. The situation eventually escalated to the point where President Houston called on the state militia . This arrested a number of leaders of both factions and finally forced a formal peace agreement between the warring sides. The county itself was officially established on March 30, 1846 and the administrative organization was completed with the holding of municipal elections on September 12 of the same year. The territory was made up of parts of the two counties Harrison and Shelby. The name Panola - for cotton - was borrowed from the Cherokee language. A vote in August 1848 - after considering alternating location options - finally determined the town of Carthage, located in the center of the county, as the administrative seat.

Agriculture had already emerged as the main line of business before the outbreak of the civil war . In addition to corn , cotton and other crops such as sweet potatoes , peas and fruit were grown. Another area was livestock . In 1850, according to the census, there were 2,676 people in Panola County - including 1,193 slaves. In 1860 the number of residents had risen to 6,392 white and 3,727 African American slaves. According to the census data, there were 445 slave owners, of whom 27 owned twenty or more slaves. During the Civil War, the county provided a company of soldiers for the Confederate Army . The effects of the civil war hit the county residents only in the final phase, when Union forces occupied the area and also requisitioned food. Even after the civil war, corn and cotton remained the most important producer products. The wood industry was added as a new line of business . In the 1880s, the area was added to the route network of the Gulf, Colorado and Santa Fe Railway . The increased connection to the national markets gave the impetus to develop the natural resources in the county more intensively. In 1889 a geological survey discovered rich deposits of lignite . The mining operations in Martin Creek, which began before the turn of the century, were soon abandoned in favor of using the abundant wood stocks .

By 1900 the county's population had risen to 21,404. Cotton production, logging and agriculture continued to be the economic pillars. The cotton boom initially continued in the new century. In 1912 there were 46 cotton mills operating within the county . During the Great Depression and thereafter returned to the trend. The population high of over 24,000 in 1930 fell back to a low of just under 16,000 in 1970. However, the emigration that began in the 1930s was offset by the growing oil and gas sector . Petroleum was first discovered in the county in 1917. Oil production reached 322,000 barrels in 1948 and peaked at almost 4 million barrels in 1963. As a result of the oil boom, the number of inhabitants also stabilized. At almost 23,000 in 2000, it again approached the 1930 peak.

Three structures and sites in the county are listed on the National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) as of March 27, 2020, the Methodist Church Concord , the Panola County Jail, and the International Boundary Marker .

Demographic data

growth of population
Census	Residents		± in%
1850	3871		-
1860	8475		118.9%
1870	10.119		19.4%
1880	12,219		20.8%
1890	14,328		17.3%
1900	21.404		-99.9%
1910	20,424		95,321.4%
1920	21,755		6.5%
1930	24,063		10.6%
1940	22,513		-6.4%
1950	19,250		-14.5%
1960	16,870		-12.4%
1970	15,894		-5.8%
1980	20,724		30.4%
1990	22,035		6.3%
2000	22,759		3.3%
2010	23,796		4.6%

Annual Texas Income by County 2014

The population of the county's population has risen steadily since it was founded in the 19th century - from just under 4,000 shortly after it was founded to over 24,000 in 1930. From the 1940s to the 1980s, it declined (the lowest of the century: 1960 at 16,870) . In 2010 it was just below the 1940 level. According to 2016 data from the United States Census Bureau, the county's population was 23,771. 11,688 of these were male , 12,083 female . 18,063 inhabitants were older than 18 years, 5,708 inhabitants were children or adolescents , 4,032 inhabitants were older than 65 years. The median age was 38.3 years. 19,162 of the respondents described themselves as white (80.6%), 3,996 as African-American (16.8%), 126 as Asian (0.5%); 16 classified their ethnicity as North American Indians (0.1%). 205 (0.9%) stated that they belonged to two or more ethnic groups. Regardless of the question about the census declaration Race , 2,025 inhabitants (8.5%) described themselves as Hispanic or Latino.

According to Quickfacts information on census.gov , the median income per household was US $ 50,712 . The median values ​​determined are close to those of the state of Texas and the USA as a whole. The census showed 15.6% of people living in poverty and 17.5% of people without health insurance.

politics

Political preferences are in line with the general trend in the southeastern US states and Texas. Up until and including 1952, the Democrats won a majority in almost every election. A significant exception was the presidential election in 1860 , in which the majority of the county's residents did not vote for the Southern Rights Democrats, but for the constitutional unionist John Bell . Beginning with the Eisenhower election in 1956, Panola County also developed into a Republican stronghold . Significant exceptions - compared to the results for all of Texas - were the 1964 and 1968 presidential elections . Just like most of the other counties in northeast Texas, Panola County favored the arch-conservative Republican Barry Goldwater in 1964 - not the Kennedy successor Johnson , who won the state. In 1968, the pronounced right-wing conservative, for the retention of the generated segregation aussprechende Dixiecrat -Kandidat George Wallace almost as many votes as the County Richard Nixon (Republican) and Hubert Humphrey together (Democrats).

Since then, the pendulum has swung in the direction of the Democrats only three times: in the 1976 presidential election (Nixon versus Carter ) and in the two candidacies of Bill Clinton in 1992 and 1996. Since the 2000 election, the Republicans in the county have clearly exceeded those in Texas as a whole. The county also proved to be a republican heartland in the 2016 presidential election . While Hillary Clinton only achieved around 27% in the county (Texas: 43%), Donald Trump achieved a result above the 70 percent mark (Texas: 52%).

Economy, employment and education

Gas and oilfield operations, agribusiness, and wood and food processing continue to be the county's economic pillars in the early 21st century . In 2004, nearly 2 million barrels of oil were produced on its territory. Farms and ranchers occupy large parts of the area. In 2002 their number was 948; the area they estimated was around 902 square kilometers. In 2003, the quarrying of wood amounted to almost 550,000 cubic meters of pine - and around 5.3 million cubic meters of hardwood . The main agricultural products are poultry products , beef and hay . In percentage terms, gas and raw material extraction is the most important industrial sector with 17.9%, followed by healthcare (14.1%) and construction (9.7%). Agriculture is only ranked 12th as an economic sector. The percentage of people employed in agriculture exceeds the average for Texas by 436%.

The urban infrastructure is concentrated in the district capital Carthage and the two small towns Beckville and Gary. All three offer general education schools that range from pre-school to twelfth grade. The Panola College , based in Carthage, is a supplementary school facility. Further schools are available in the neighboring counties.

Others

Methodist Church Concord (2014)

Additional infrastructure in the county includes several dozen churches , two nursing homes , two public libraries and the MP Baker Library at Panola College, the privately owned regional airport Panola County Airport east of Carthage and the two weekly newspapers Panola Watchman and Panola Post . A nationally known institution is the Carthage-based Texas Country Music Hall of Fame, founded in 1998 . The goal of the Hall of Fame is to honor Texas country musicians for their achievements. The new admissions take place on an annual basis; in 2017 Kenny Rogers and Bobbie Lee Nelson, sister of Willie Nelson , were newly admitted. The Tex Ritter Museum has been located in the same building since 2003 - a museum in memory of the country star Tex Ritter who was born in the district .

With Mineral Springs , located in the county's northwest forests, Panola County also has a derelict ghost town abandoned by its residents . In the 19th century a small patch of African American population at a station on the Sabine Valley and Northwestern Railway, the place became orphaned after the line was closed at the beginning of the 20th century . By 1948 the church, built in 1870, had collapsed and forests had covered the clearings.

The county is one of the 30 or so counties in Texas that partially or completely prohibits the sale of alcohol. A local vote in 2013 relaxed the ban to the effect that restaurants can offer beer and wine as well as mixed drinks .

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b c d e f g h i j} Panola County . Leila B. LaGrone, Texas State Historical Association; from Handbook of Texas Online , June 15, 2010 (Engl.)
2. ^ Overview of Panola County, Texas . Overview on statisticalatlas.org, accessed January 6, 2018
3. ^ Was regulator moderator . Gilbert M. Cuthbertson, Texas State Historical Association; from Handbook of Texas Online , June 15, 2010 (Engl.)
4. ↑ Charles Curry Aiken, Joseph Nathan Kane: The American Counties: Origins of County Names, Dates of Creation, Area, and Population Data, 1950-2010 . 6th edition. Scarecrow Press, Lanham 2013, ISBN 978-0-8108-8762-6 , p. 235.
5. ↑ Search mask database in the National Register Information System. National Park Service , accessed March 27, 2020.
   Weekly List on the National Register Information System. National Park Service , accessed March 27, 2020.
6. ^ ^{A b} Population of Panola County . population.us, accessed January 6, 2018
7. ^ Panola County, Texas . ACS Demographic and Housing Estimates, 2016, American FactFinder, accessed January 6, 2018.
8. ↑ ^{a b} Panola County, Texas , brief overview on the website of the United States Census Bureau, accessed January 6, 2018 (Engl.)
9. ^ Household Income in Panola County, Texas . Household income overview on statisticalatlas.com, accessed January 6, 2018
10. ↑ ^{a b} 2016 Presidential General Election Results . Interactive map on useclectionatlas.org, results accessed on January 6, 2018 (Engl.)
11. ^ Overview of Panola County, Texas . Details under "Occupations" and "Industries" on statisticalatlas.org, accessed on January 6, 2018 (Engl.)
12. ↑ Texas Country Music Hall of Fame announces 2017 inductees . Panola Watchman, March 31, 2017 (Engl.)
13. ^ Mineral Springs, Tx . Claudia Hazlewood, Texas State Historical Association, accessed January 6, 2018.
14. ↑ Local Option Alcohol: Map of Counties , Texas State Historical Association, June 2014 (Engl.)

Web links

Commons : Panola County (Texas)  - Collection of pictures, videos, and audio files

• Official website of the Panola County (Engl.)
• Website of the Texas Country Music Hall of Fame (Engl.)