Brooks County

Duane's take

Here's how the official marker tells it, and here's how I tell it to you. Now, out here in deep South Texas, between the brush country and the border, sits Brooks County. But it didn't just appear on the map.

It was carved, deliberately and officially, out of three neighboring counties, Hidalgo, Starr, and Zapata, created on March 11, 1911, and organized not long after, on September 2, 1911. Someone had to draw those lines, and someone had to give the new place a name worthy of the land. They chose James Abijah Brooks.

And that name carries some weight. Brooks served as a Captain of the Texas Rangers from 1882 to 1906. That is a long stretch of Ranger duty by any measure, the kind of service that leaves a mark on a territory and a territory's memory of you.

After that chapter closed, he didn't disappear into the brush. He moved into public life, serving as a member of the Texas Legislature, and then as County Judge of Brooks County itself, beginning in 1911, the very county that bore his name. Think about that for just a moment.

A county named after you, and then you serve as its judge. You are presiding, in a sense, over your own legacy while it's still being written. Falfurrias is the county seat, anchoring this stretch of South Texas that was stitched together from three older places and given new purpose, a new identity, and a name it has carried ever since.

James Abijah Brooks, Ranger, legislator, judge. Brooks County, formed 1911, and still out there on the map where they put it.

What the marker says

Formed from Hidalgo, Starr and Zapata counties, created March 11, 1911; organized September 2, 1911. Named in honor of James Abijah Brooks, Captain of Texas Rangers, 1882-1906, member of Texas Legislature, County Judge, Brooks County since 1911; Falfurrias, the County Seat.