Upton County

Duane's take

The official marker tells it this way, and I'm just here to pass it along. Now, out here in West Texas, the land has a way of holdin' its history close. Upton County sits on ground that was once all part of Tom Green County, and it took two separate acts of history to fully bring it into being.

The county was created on February 26, 1887. That much was settled. But organizing a county, actually getting the machinery of governance turning, that took a little longer.

It wasn't until May 7, 1910, that Upton County was officially organized. And who is this county named for? John Cunningham Upton, born in 1828.

A distinguished Confederate officer. The marker doesn't waste words on him, but the ones it does use carry weight. He was killed at Manassas, on August 30, 1862.

That battlefield took him in 1862, and this county on the high Texas plains carries his name to this day. When the county finally organized in 1910, it needed a seat, and Upland got the call. Upland held that distinction from 1910 until 1921.

Then Rankin stepped in, and Rankin has been the county seat ever since. As for what keeps Upton County going, the marker lays it out plain. Cattle and sheep raising built this place.

But then came something else entirely. Oil wells. They don't just exist here, they dot the county.

Scattered across that West Texas terrain like punctuation on a very long, very dry sentence. From a Confederate officer fallen at Manassas, to cattle and sheep on the open range, to oil wells rising up out of the caliche, Upton County has never been just one thing. And out here, that's about the highest compliment the land can pay.

What the marker says

Formed from Tom Green County. Created February 26, 1887, organized May 7, 1910. Named in honor of John Cunningham Upton 1828-1862, a distinguished Confederate officer killed at Manassas, August 30, 1862. County Seat, Upland, 1910-1921, Rankin, since. A cattle and sheep raising county. Oil wells dot the county.