Bee County
Pettus, Bee County, Texas
Marker Inscription
1936 plate: Created a county largely from San Patricio in 1857 Organized in 1858. Named for General Barnard E. Bee, 1787-1853 Secretary of War and Secretary of State of the Republic of Texas. Texas Minister to the United States. First railroad in 1886. Oil discovered, 1929. County seat, Marysville, 1858. Beeville, since 1860. 1971 plate: Named for Col. Barnard E. Bee (1787-1853), who served Republic of Texas as Secretary of War, Secretary of State, and Minister to the United States. County was created by legislative act on Dec. 8, 1857; organized Jan. 25, 1858, from land earlier in Goliad, Karnes, Live Oak, Refugio, and San Patricio counties. County seat in 1858 was on Medio Creek; since 1860 at present Beeville. A cattle region since Spanish times, Bee County became important beef producer in 1865. San Antonio and Aransas Pass Railroad provided first modern transportation in 1886. Oil was discovered here in 1929.
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
Carved largely from San Patricio County in 1857 and organized in 1858, Bee County took its name from Barnard E. Bee, who served the Republic of Texas as secretary of war, secretary of state, and minister to the United States. A cattle region since Spanish colonial times, it became an important beef producer after 1865 and gained its first railroad, the San Antonio and Aransas Pass, in 1886. Oil was discovered here in 1929, and the county seat has been at Beeville since 1860.
Why it matters
The county's story compresses the arc of South Texas development, from Spanish-era ranching through the cattle economy and the railroad to the twentieth-century oil boom.
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Related people
- · Barnard E. Bee
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Jourdanton
Jourdanton, TX
In 1909 two entrepreneurs—merchant Jourdan Campbell and Danish wool-and-mohair man Theodore Zanderson—laid out a town on their ranch and persuaded a land speculator to bring the railroad through; the first train arrived that September. Jourdanton quickly gained utilities, a bank, a newspaper and churches, and in 1910 wrested the county seat from Pleasanton. Oil and gas discoveries in the 1940s and later lignite mining kept the town growing well after the railroads stopped running.
Medio Creek
Beeville, TX
Spaniards named this creek 'Medio'—middle—around 1800 for its position midway between the San Antonio and Nueces Rivers, and explorers, padres, soldiers, and settlers crossed it on three ox-cart roads running from Mexico to Mission La Bahía at Goliad. The freight route sparked the 1857 Cart War between Texan and Mexican teamsters, and Mexican drivers' mesquite-bean feed helped seed the brush that lines the banks today. A downstream community rose and fell here—the town of Candlish, founded in 1909, became a ghost town—while nearby fossil beds later yielded a new species of mastodon.
The Railroad in Bee County
Beeville, TX
On June 14, 1886, the first San Antonio and Aransas Pass train steamed into Beeville to a cheering crowd — the payoff of a campaign by rail promoter Uriah Lott, cattleman Captain A.C. Jones, and rancher Frank Skidmore, who donated land and money to bend the line through Bee County. When a second line arrived in 1889, Beeville became a rail center shipping cattle and cotton far and wide, with passenger service peaking around 1918 at eighteen trains a day on one line. Highways eventually undid it all: passenger service ended in 1952, the depot fell in 1958, and the last train left the county in 1994.
McClanahan House
Beeville, TX
Erected about 1867 near Poesta Creek on the courthouse square, this is Beeville's oldest business building—a pioneer-western structure with southern porches that housed a general store, lodging house, and post office. It was built by G. W. McClanahan, the town's first merchant, who also served as schoolteacher, postmaster, county clerk, innkeeper, and Sunday school superintendent.