Buchel County | |
|---|---|
 Map depicting Buchel County's location in 1888 | |
 Location within the U.S. state of Texas | |
 Texas's location within the U.S. | |
| Coordinates: 30°12′N103°12′W / 30.2°N 103.2°W | |
| Country |  United States |
| State |  Texas |
| Existed | 1887–1897 |
| Named for | Augustus Buchel |
| Seat | Marathon |
| Largest Town | Marathon |
| Population (1890) | |
| • Total | 298 |
Buchel County was a former Texas county. Its area is now completely contained in the present Brewster County.
On March 15, 1887, the Texas legislature passed legislation that divided Presidio County into four counties: Presidio, Jeff Davis, Foley and Buchel. [1] : 824–825 Named after German soldier and war hero Augustus Buchel, the county occupied the northeast corner of what is now Brewster County including the town of Marathon which was to serve as the county seat. The 1890 Census reported 298 residents in Buchel County, the majority of whom lived in Marathon. In 1889, it and neighboring Foley County were attached to the original Brewster County for surveying purposes, [2] and in 1897 both counties were abolished and absorbed by Brewster County. [3]
During the first decades of the twentieth century, some Texans tried to reorganize the county. As early as 1909, one newspaper reported that "A movement is on foot to re-establish Buchel county and make Marathon the county seat." [4]
In 1915, a bill submitted to the 34th Texas Legislature (SB 187) sought to establish Buchel County from territory in Brewster County. [5] Reports suggested that the bill was supported by representatives and there was little expected opposition, [6] however no final version of the text was published as law, suggesting that the bill was never passed.
The Texas state law that created the new county laid out the following boundaries:
Buchel County is bounded as follows, to-wit: Beginning at the northeast corner of Brewster County on the Presidio and Pecos County line; thence south with the east line of Brewster County sixty miles; thence east to the Rio Grande River; thence down said river with its meanders to the Pecos County line; thence in a northwesterly direction among said Pecos County line to the place of the beginning. [1] : 824
Presidio County is a county located in the U.S. state of Texas. As of the 2020 census, its population was 6,131. Its county seat is Marfa. The county was created in 1850 and later organized in 1875. Presidio County is in the Trans-Pecos region of West Texas and is named for the border settlement of Presidio del Norte. It is on the Rio Grande, which forms the Mexican border.
Pecos County is a county located in the U.S. state of Texas. As of the 2020 census, its population was 15,193. The county seat is Fort Stockton. The county was created in 1871 and organized in 1875. It is named for the Pecos River. It is one of the nine counties that comprise the Trans-Pecos region of West Texas.
Brewster County is a county located in the U.S. state of Texas. It is in West Texas and its county seat is Alpine. It is one of the nine counties that comprise the Trans-Pecos region, and borders Mexico. Brewster County is the largest county by area in the state - at 6,192 square miles (16,040 km2) it is over three times the size of the state of Delaware, and more than 500 square miles (1,300 km2) bigger than Connecticut.
Fort Stockton is a city in and the county seat of Pecos County, Texas, United States. It is located on Interstate 10, future Interstate 14, U.S. Highways 67, 285, and 385, and the Santa Fe Railroad, 329 mi (529 km) northwest of San Antonio and 240 mi (390 km) southeast of El Paso. Its population was 8,466 at the 2020 census.
Phantly Roy Bean Jr. was an American saloon-keeper and Justice of the Peace in Val Verde County, Texas, who called himself "The Only Law West of the Pecos". According to legend, he held court in his saloon along the Rio Grande on a desolate stretch of the Chihuahuan Desert of southwest Texas. After his death, fictional Western films and books cast him as a hanging judge, although he is known to have sentenced only two men to hang, one of whom escaped.
The Big Bend is part of the Trans-Pecos region in southwestern Texas, United States along the border with Mexico, north of the prominent bend in the Rio Grande for which the region is named. Here the Rio Grande passes between the Chisos Mountains in Texas and the Sierra Madre Oriental in Mexico as it changes from running east-southeast to north-northeast. The region covers three counties: Presidio County to the west, Brewster County to the east, and Jeff Davis County to the north.
West Texas is a loosely defined region in the U.S. state of Texas, generally encompassing the arid and semiarid lands west of a line drawn between the cities of Wichita Falls, Abilene, and Del Rio.
The United States District Court for the Western District of Texas is a federal district court. The court convenes in San Antonio with divisions in Austin, Del Rio, El Paso, Midland, Pecos, and Waco. It has jurisdiction in over 50 Trans-Pecos, Permian Basin, and Hill Country counties of the U.S. state of Texas. This district covers over 92,000 square miles (240,000 km2) and seven divisions.
State Highway 17 runs from Marfa to Pecos in west Texas. The road is maintained by the Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT).
Hans Peter Mareus Neilsen Gammel was an author and bookseller. He served as editor and publisher of a series of books reporting Texas legislation enacted by each congressional and legislative session. His first publication consisted of 10 volumes and covered 75 years of Texas legal history. The Laws of Texas 1822-1897 has long been a primary resource for the study of Texas legal history during the Nineteenth Century.
Encinal County was a former Texas county. Its area is now completely contained in the present Webb County.
The Trans-Pecos, as originally defined in 1887 by the Texas geologist Robert T. Hill, is the distinct portion of Texas that lies west of the Pecos River. The term is considered synonymous with Far West Texas, a subdivision of West Texas. The Trans-Pecos is part of the Chihuahuan Desert, the largest desert in North America. It is the most mountainous and arid portion of the state, and most of its vast area is sparsely populated. Among the nine counties in the region are the five largest counties by area in Texas and eight of the eleven largest in the state. The area is known for the natural environment of the Big Bend and the gorge of the Rio Grande, part of which has been designated a National Wild and Scenic Rivers System. With the notable exceptions of Big Bend Ranch State Park, Big Bend National Park and the Guadalupe Mountains National Park, the vast majority of the Trans-Pecos region consists of privately owned ranchland. However, most of the region's population reside in the El Paso metropolitan area. Besides El Paso and its metropolitan area, the major cities are Pecos (12,916), Fort Stockton (8,466), and Alpine (6,035). All other settlements have under 5,000 people.
Area code 432 is a telephone area code in the North American Numbering Plan (NANP) for the U.S. state of Texas in the Permian Basin and Trans-Pecos areas, including the cities of Midland, Odessa, and Alpine. It was created, along with area code 325, on April 5, 2003 in a split of numbering plan area (NPA) 915.
The Texas Courts of Appeals are part of the Texas judicial system. In Texas, all cases appealed from district and county courts, criminal and civil, go to one of the fourteen intermediate courts of appeals, with one exception: death penalty cases. The latter are taken directly to the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals, the court of last resort for criminal matters in the State of Texas. The highest court for civil and juvenile matters is the Texas Supreme Court. While the Supreme Court (SCOTX) and the Court of Criminal Appeals (CCA) each have nine members per the Texas Constitution, the sizes of the intermediate courts of appeals are set by statute and vary greatly, depending on historical case filings and so that the justices on each court can timely adjudicate the volume of cases regularly before them. The total number of intermediate appellate court seats currently stands at 80, ranging from three, four, six, seven, nine, and thirteen (Dallas) per court.
The geography of Texas is diverse and large. Occupying about 7% of the total water and land area of the U.S., it is the second largest state after Alaska, and is the southernmost part of the Great Plains, which end in the south against the folded Sierra Madre Oriental of Mexico. Texas is in the South Central United States of America, and is considered to form part of the U.S. South and also part of the U.S. Southwest.
The San Antonio–El Paso Road, also known as the Lower Emigrant Road or Military Road, was an economically important trade route between the Texas cities of San Antonio and El Paso between 1849 and 1882. Mail, freight, and passengers traveled by horse and wagon along this road across the Edwards Plateau and dangerous Trans-Pecos region of West Texas.
Foley County is a defunct county in the U.S. state of Texas. It was located in the Big Bend area of far West Texas in what is now Brewster County.
William Paul Brady was an American lawyer. From 1909 to around 1914, he served as the first district attorney for Texas' 70th judicial district, and from 1917 to 1919 he was the judge for the newly created El Paso County Court at Law. Brady prosecuted several high-profile murder cases as a district attorney, including of Agnes Orner, and in a death-penalty case that has since been termed a "legal lynching" of a Mexican boy charged with killing a white woman.
Comanche Springs was an aquifer of six artesian springs geographically located between the Edwards Plateau and the Trans-Pecos regions of West Texas. The military fortification Camp Stockton was built around the springs, eventually growing become the city of Fort Stockton.
Media related to Buchel County, Texas at Wikimedia Commons