Freestone County is a county in the east-central part of the U.S. state of Texas. As of the 2020 census, its population was 19,435. Its county seat is Fairfield. The county was created in 1850 and organized the next year.

History

Native Americans

Archeological evidence of the farming Kichai band of the Caddoan Mississippian culture dates to 200 BC in the area.

The Hernando de Soto expedition of 1541 resulted in violent encounters with the Caddo Native Americans who occupied the area. Spanish and French missionaries carried smallpox, measles, malaria, and influenza as endemic diseases; the Caddo suffered epidemics, as they had no acquired immunity to these new diseases. Eventually, the Caddo were forced to reservations.

County established

200px|thumb|Old Freestone County Jail, [[Fairfield, Texas]]

200px|thumb|This cannon was taken at the Civil War battle of Val Verde. It is on the courthouse grounds

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In 1826, empresario David G. Burnet received a grant from the Coahuila y Tejas legislature to settle 300 families. By contracting how many families each grantee could settle, the government sought to have some control over colonization.

The threat of Indian hostilities kept most from homesteading in Freestone County until the Treaty of Bird's Fort. Within three years of the treaty, colonization, primarily from Southern states, had been so successful that the counties surrounding Freestone had already been organized. In 1850, the Texas Legislature formed Freestone County from Limestone County. Freestone is a descriptive name referring to the quality of the soil. The county was organized in 1851. Fairfield was designated as the county seat. Of the county's total 1860 population of 6,881, more than half (3,613) were slaves.

Freestone County voted 585–3 in favor of secession from the Union. After the Civil War, while the loss of slave labor may have hurt the planters in the local county economy, by the end of Reconstruction, the number of farms doubled, with more smaller farms than before the war. Continuing economic and social tensions after Reconstruction resulted in Whites lynching Blacks to keep them in place as second-class citizens. Freestone County had nine such lynchings from 1877 into the early 20th century, most around the turn of the century. This was the fifth-highest total in the state, tied with that of Grimes County, Texas.

The Houston and Texas Central Railway was constructed to skirt the county to the west and south in 1870, giving the local economy a boost. and the International – Great Northern Railroad The Trinity and Brazos Valley Railway, laid track across the county in 1906, helping the growing economy.

The Prohibition Eighteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution took effect in 1920, banning the sale, manufacturing, and transportation of alcoholic beverages for public consumption. In the period until its repeal by the Twenty-first Amendment to the United States Constitution in 1933, some enterprising individuals in Freestone followed a national trend and began bootlegging for profit. This illegal activity put food on the table for some people during a period when the local economy was in a downward slide.

In 1969, the Texas Utilities Generating Company located a new power plant near Fairfield called Big Brown Power Plant. A dam was built to create Fairfield Lake to provide stored water for a cooling system for the plant. Fairfield Lake State Park was established around the lake and opened to the public in 1976. Big Brown was shut down in February 2018.

Geography

According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the county has a total area of , of which are land and (1.6%) are covered by water.

Major highways

  • 20px I-45
  • 20px US 79
  • 20px US 84
  • 25px US 287
  • 20px SH 14
  • 20px SH 75
  • 20px SH 164
  • 20px SH 179

Adjacent counties

  • Henderson County (north)
  • Anderson County (northeast)
  • Leon County (southeast)
  • Limestone County (southwest)
  • Navarro County (northwest)

Demographics

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Education

School districts include:

  • Buffalo Independent School District
  • Corsicana Independent School District
  • Dew Independent School District
  • Fairfield Independent School District
  • Mexia Independent School District
  • Oakwood Independent School District
  • Teague Independent School District
  • Wortham Independent School District

The entire county is in the service area of Navarro College, according to the Texas Education Code.

See also

  • National Register of Historic Places listings in Freestone County, Texas
  • Recorded Texas Historic Landmarks in Freestone County

References

  • See a map, Freestone County / sponsored by Freestone County Historical Survey Committee. hosted by the Portal to Texas History.
  • Freestone County Times homepage