200px|thumb|right|Post Dispatch [[newspaper covers local events of Garza County.]]
200px|right|thumb|[[Wells Fargo Bank serves Garza County through its outlet in Post.]]
Garza County is a county located in the U.S. state of Texas. As of the 2020 census, its population was 5,816, of which most of the population were residing in its county seat, and only incorporated municipality, Post. The county was created in 1876 and later organized in 1907. Garza is named for a pioneer Bexar County family, as it was once a part of that county.
History
Indigenous peoples of the Americas were the first inhabitants of the area, with evidence from around 2000 BC. Later inhabitants were the Kiowa and Comanche.
In 1875, W. C. Young of Fort Worth and Irishman Ben Galbraith of Illinois established the beginnings of the Curry Comb Ranch in the northwestern part of Garza County.
Garza County was formed in 1876 from Bexar County, and named for Lieutenant Joseph de la Garza and his family who were prominent in Bexar County and decedened from José Antonio de la Garza.
By 1880, the county census count was 36 people. That same year, OS Ranch was founded by brothers Andrew J. and Frank M. Long of Lexington, Kentucky.
The county's population reached 185 persons by the last year of the 19th century. From 1909 to 1913, C.W. Post built a cotton gin and a cotton mill, and attempted to improve agriculture production through rainmaking, involving the heavy use of explosives fired from kites and towers along the rim of the Caprock Escarpment.
In 1926, oil was discovered in the county. Quanah and Bryan Maxey discovered a 16-foot-long tusk of a prehistoric imperial mammoth in 1934. This tusk is currently located in the American Museum of Natural History, New York City. In 1960–1965, South Plains Archaeological Society excavations of Cowhead Mesa found artifacts to date inhabitation back to 2000 BC. It is located southeast of Lubbock in the Canyonlands of the Llano Estacado Escarpment.
Major roads and highways
- 20px U.S. Highway 84
- 25px U.S. Highway 380
- 20px State Highway 207
- 20px Farm to Market Road 669
Adjacent counties
- Crosby County (north)
- Dickens County (northeast)
- Kent County (east)
- Scurry County (southeast)
- Borden County (south)
- Lynn County (west)
- Lubbock County (northwest)