Bee County is a county located in the U.S. state of Texas. It is in South Texas and its county seat is Beeville. As of the 2020 census, its population was 31,047. The Beeville, TX micropolitan statistical area includes all of Bee County. The county was founded December 8, 1857, and organized the next year. It is named for Barnard E. Bee, Sr., a secretary of state of the Republic of Texas.
History
On December 8, 1857, the Texas Legislature formed Bee County from sections of Refugio, Live Oak, San Patricio, Goliad, and Karnes Counties, naming it for Colonel Barnard Elliot Bee, who served the Republic of Texas as Sam Houston's secretary of war and Mirabeau B. Lamar's secretary of state.
During the Anglo-American land speculation of the 1830s, the area's earliest settlers were mainly Irish immigrants, but by the late 1840s and early 1850s, the rise of Jacksonian expansionism inspired Southern whites from the North Carolina, South Carolina, Louisiana, and Mississippi to occupy and build settlements in the area.
As the constitution of the Republic of Texas no longer recognized the Catholic Church (or any church) as the state religion and slave-holding settlers came to dominate the area in the 1840s, small Methodist, Presbyterian, and Baptist congregations began forming with sustained missionary support from these denominations. Research suggests that Baptists and Methodists comprised 65% of all Texas congregations by 1870.
Geography
According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the county has a total area of , of which (0.01%) is covered by water. The Aransas River forms in Bee County, southwest of Beeville and north of Skidmore.
Major highways
- 20px U.S. Highway 59
- 25px Interstate 69W is currently under construction and will follow the current route of U.S. 59 in most places.
- 25px U.S. Highway 181
- 20px State Highway 72
- 20px State Highway 202
- 20px State Highway 359
- 20px Farm to Market Road 673
- 20px Farm to Market Road 799
- 20px Farm to Market Road 888
Adjacent counties
- Karnes County (north)
- Goliad County (northeast)
- Refugio County (east)
- San Patricio County (southeast)
- Live Oak County (west)