The Uvalde County Courthouse was built in 1928 in neoclassical design. It is the fifth structure used as the county courthouse, having replaced the previous building constructed in 1890.
Artifacts establish human habitation dating back to 7000 B.C. Evidence of a permanent Indianvillage on the Leona River at a place south of the Fort Inge site is indicated in the written accounts of Fernando del Bosque's exploration in 1675. Comanche, Tonkawa, Seminole and Lipan Apache continued hunting and raiding settlers into the 19th century.[4]
Early explorations
On January 9, 1790, Juan de Ugalde, governor of Coahuila and commandant of the Provincias Internas, led 600 men to a decisive victory over the Apaches near the site of modern Utopia[5] at a place known then as Arroyo de la Soledad. In honor of his victory, the canyon area was thereafter called Cañon de Ugalde. French botanistJean-Louis Berlandier visited the area in the late 1820s. James Bowie guided a group of silver prospectors into the area of north central Uvalde County in the 1830s. A trail used by General Adrián Woll'sMexican Army on its way to attack San Antonio in 1842 crossed the territory of Uvalde County and became the main highway to San Antonio.
Early settlements
Fort Inge was established in 1849 to repress Indian depredations on the international border with Mexico, and was served by the Overland Southern Mail.
One of the first settlers to the environs was William Washington Arnett, who arrived in the winter of 1852. The Canyon de Ugalde Land Company, formed by land speculators in San Antonio in 1837, began purchasing headright grants in Uvalde County in the late 1830s. Reading Wood Black,[6] who with a partner, Nathan L. Stratton, purchased an undivided league and labor on the Leona River in 1853 at the future site of Uvalde. May 2, 1855, Black hired San Antonio lithographer Wilhelm Carl August Thielepape,[7] and laid out Encina, the town later known as Uvalde.[8][9] Waresville settlement by Capt. William Ware in the upper Sabinal Canyon and Patterson Settlement by George W. Patterson, John Leakey, and A. B. Dillard on the Sabinal River coincided with Reading Black's development of the Leona River at Encina.[citation needed]
In November 1855, Reading Wood Black successfully lobbied the Texas Legislature to organize Uvalde County.[citation needed] On May 12, the county was formally organized.[citation needed] On June 14, Encina was named county seat.[citation needed] The second floor of the courthouse was made into a school, and six school districts were organized for the county in 1858. The San Antonio-El Paso Mail route was extended along the county's main road with a stop at Fort Inge in 1857.[citation needed]
Conflict between Mexicans and Anglos during and after the Mexican War continued in Uvalde County, with the reported lynching of eleven Mexicans near the Nueces River in 1855.[citation needed] Laws passed in 1857 prohibited Mexicans from traveling through the county.[citation needed]
Residents of Uvalde County voted 76–16 against secession from the Union. The abandonment of Fort Inge immediately after secession was followed by renewed Indian attacks. Many men in Uvalde County fought for the Confederacy, while some Unionists fled to Mexico to avoid persecution.[10]
Uvalde County endured three decades of unrelenting lawlessness after the Civil War. Violence, lawlessness and Confederate-Union conflicts among citizens were so pervasive that armed guards were employed to assist the county tax assessor and collector, and the county had no sheriff for nearly two years. The years immediately following the Civil War were marked by conflicts between Confederates and Unionists returning to live in Uvalde County. Smugglers, cattle rustlers and horse rustlers, and numerous other desperadoes saturated the area, including notorious cattle rustler, J. King Fisher who was appointed Uvalde sheriff in 1881.[11] Willis Newton of The Newton Gang robbed his first train near Uvalde. Jess and Joe Newton retired to Uvalde.[12]
The Uvalde Umpire began publication in 1878 and the Hesparian in 1879.[citation needed]
The Galveston, Harrisburg, and San Antonio Railway was built through the county, passing through Sabinal and Uvalde City, in 1881.[citation needed]
William M. Landrum introduced Angora goats to the area in the 1880s. By the turn of the century, goats outnumbered cattle.[citation needed]
Old West lawman Pat Garrett lived in the county from 1891 to 1900.[13]
By 1905 the Southern Pacific Railroad had established railheads in Uvalde, Knippa, and Sabinal.[citation needed]
The local bee industry developed a product that received first place in the 1900 Paris World's Fair.[citation needed]
In 1990 Uvalde County had a population of 23,340, with 60% identified as Hispanic.[citation needed]
Desegregation
From the Mexican Revolution in 1910, immigrant labor force cleared large tracts of land and dug ditches as irrigation spread throughout the county. The Uvalde and Northern Railway to Camp Wood, the Asphalt Beltway Railway in 1921, and the expansion of the asphalt mines in far southwestern Uvalde County at Blewett and Dabney were completed with the help of Mexican labor. By 1960 Mexican Americans made up one half of Uvalde County's 16,015 population. Seasonal migrant workers continued to move to Uvalde and Sabinal during the 1960s.[citation needed]
The Alien Land Laws of 1891, 1892 and 1921 prohibited ownership of Texas land by non-citizen residents.[14] The laws were repealed in 1965 by the Fifty-ninth Texas Legislature.[citation needed] These and other discriminatory deed restrictions had limited Tejanos in the purchase of town lots in the county.[citation needed]
Efforts to gain civil rights for Hispanics in Uvalde County began with the establishment of the Tomas Valle Post of the American Legion.[citation needed] County churches maintained segregated places of worship until an integrated Catholic church emerged in Uvalde in 1965.[citation needed]
The Mexican American Youth Organization formed in Uvalde City in 1968 and eventually led to a 6-week walkout by more than 600 Mexican-American students an on April 14, 1970.[15][16] The Texas Rangers and the Texas Department of Public Safety responded to requests by the school board to help control the volatile situation. Senator Walter F. Mondale, chairman of the United States Senate Committee on Equal Educational Opportunity, went to Uvalde on July 30, 1970, and criticized city officials in an interview published in the Uvalde Leader News.
[17]
On March 29, 2017, thirteen senior citizens from the First Baptist Church of New Braunfels in Comal County who had completed a retreat at Alto Frio Baptist Encampment near Leakey in Real County were killed when Jack D. Young, the 20-year-old driver of a pickup, crashed into the church minivan on U.S. Highway 83 inside Uvalde County near Garner State Park. One person survived the crash in critical condition. The collision was one of the deadliest in memory in Uvalde County.[22]
Young, who worked on his father's ranch and at a golf course and had no criminal record, told a witness, "I'm sorry, I'm sorry," and said that he had been on his cell phone at the time of the crash. Jody Kuchler, a welder from Leakey who saw the accident, said that the driver of the church vehicle moved over to try to avoid Young's incoming pickup but was blocked by the presence of a guard rail.[23]
On May 24, 2022, 19 children and two teachers were killed in a school shooting in Uvalde, Texas.[24] The shooter, Salvador Rolando Ramos, had shot his grandmother before driving to Robb Elementary School, where he entered the building without opposition. Local officers, believing the shooter to be barricaded safely inside the school, stood outside waiting for further instruction. Video shows local officers forcing parents behind police tape, pinning them down and threatening to tase them, preventing them from trying to save their children's lives.[25] After an hour, the killer was shot by BORTAC agents.[26]
Geography
According to the United States Census Bureau, the county has a total area of 1,559 square miles (4,040 km2), of which 1,552 square miles (4,020 km2) is land and 6.7 square miles (17 km2) (0.4%) is water.[27]
As of the 2020 United States census, there were 24,564 people, 8,921 households, and 6,206 families residing in the county.
As of the census[34] of 2000, there were 25,926 people, 8,559 households, and 6,641 families residing in the county. The population density was 17 people per square mile (6.6 people/km2). There were 10,166 housing units at an average density of 6 units per square mile (2.3 units/km2). The racial makeup of the county was 75.68% White, 0.36% Black or African American, 0.68% Native American, 0.39% Asian, 0.08% Pacific Islander, 19.65% from other races, and 3.16% from two or more races. 65.91% of the population were Hispanic or Latino of any race.
There were 8,559 households, out of which 40.2% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 59.4% were married couples living together, 13.7% had a female householder with no husband present, and 22.4% were non-families. 19.9% of all households were made up of individuals, and 9.8% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 2.96 and the average family size was 3.42.
In the county, the population was spread out, with 31.4% under the age of 18, 9.80% from 18 to 24, 25.3% from 25 to 44, 20% from 45 to 64, and 13.6% who were 65 years of age or older. The median age was 32 years. For every 100 females there were 95.00 males. For every 100 females age 18 and over, there were 90.70 males.
The median income for a household in the county was $27,164, and the median income for a family was $30,671. Males had a median income of $25,135 versus $16,486 for females. The per capita income for the county was $12,557. About 19.90% of families and 24.3% of the population were below the poverty line, including 33.9% of those under age 18 and 18.6% of those age 65 or over.
^Note: the US Census treats Hispanic/Latino as an ethnic category. This table excludes Latinos from the racial categories and assigns them to a separate category. Hispanics/Latinos can be of any race.[32][33]
^Santos, Alfredo Rodriguez (July–August 2009). "No Apologies, No Regrets"(PDF). La Voz de Austin: 10. Archived(PDF) from the original on October 9, 2022.
Welder, F.A. and R.D. Reeves. (1964). Geology and ground-water resources of Uvalde County, Texas [U.S. Geological Survey Water-Supply Paper 1584]. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office.
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