Duval County is a county located in the U.S. state of Texas. As of the 2020 census, its population was 9,831. Its county seat is San Diego. The county was founded in 1858 and later organized in 1876. It is named for Burr H. Duval, a soldier in the Texas Revolution who died in the Goliad Massacre.
History
Duval County's development began during the Viceroyalty of New Spain (1521–1821). In 1804, six years before Father Miguel Hidalgo y Costilla launched Mexico's successful independence movement from Spain, Jose Faustino Contreras, surveyor general of San Luis Potosi, charted the county's landscape, which attracted colonists from Mier, Tamaulipas.
On February 1, 1858, the Texas Legislature established Duval County. The Texas Almanac of 1867 reported that Duval and nearby Dimmit County had only four stock raisers and their population was unlikely to grow much, absent the discovery of mineral wealth. Not long after, a wave of Anglo immigrants entered the county to raise sheep. Englishmen, Frenchmen, Germans, Irishmen, and Scots came. During this boom, the county seat enjoyed formal balls and haute cuisine. The Hotel Martinet's Sunday feast drew patrons from Corpus Christi, to the East.
The death rate rivaled Tombstone, Arizona's. Although some died under the code duello, most of Duval County's deaths were murders that primarily victimized the legacy Spanish-speaking population. When a great pile of cowhides presumed to have come from stolen animals was discovered near the county line, a vigilante group from Duval and McMullen County lynched 15 Spanish-speaking Texans there.
In April of 1878, a large Indian raid carried out by the Kickapoo, Seminole, and Lipan Apache ended up in the deaths of more than 10 people.
Prosperity in the 1880s placated Anglo animosity. When the Texas Mexican Railway began operating in 1881, its San Diego station served as an important hub for trading hides, wool and cotton, but the boom evaporated when sheep began dying during the Winter of 1886–1887, triggering the Sheep Wars that once again primarily victimized the legacy Spanish-speaking population.
During the twentieth century, the Parr family established a political machine that dominated politics in Duval and nearby Jim Wells counties. The family was instrumental in the 1948 election of Lyndon B. Johnson to the US Senate, and influenced the outcome of the 1960 presidential election which threw Texas to John F. Kennedy.
Geography
thumb|State Highway 16, Duval County (April 16, 2016)
According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the county has a total area of , of which is land and (0.1%) is water. The county overlies the Piedras Pintas salt dome, scheduled for at hydrogen storage.
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.
- 20px State Highway 16
- 20px State Highway 44
- 20px State Highway 285
- 20px State Highway 339
- 20px State Highway 359
- 20px Farm to Market Road 716
- 20px Farm to Market Road 1329
- 20px Farm to Market Road 2295
- 20px Farm to Market Road 3196
Adjacent counties
- McMullen County (north)
- Live Oak County (northeast)
- Jim Wells County (east)
- Brooks County (southeast)
- Jim Hogg County (south)
- Webb County (west)
- La Salle County (northwest)