Irion County
Mertzon, Irion County, Texas
Marker Inscription
Created March 7, 1889. Organized April 16, 1889. Named in honor of Robert Anderson Irion, 1806-1860. Came to Texas in 1833 and located at Nacogdoches. Member of the first Texas Congress. Secretary of State in the cabinet of President Houston, 1837-1838. Sherwood, the county seat.
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
Irion County was created in 1889 and organized that same April, part of the steady subdivision of West Texas as settlement pushed onto the plains. It honors Robert Anderson Irion, who came to Texas in 1833, settled at Nacogdoches, and served in the First Texas Congress before becoming Secretary of State under President Sam Houston in 1837–38. Sherwood was named the original county seat. The marker ties the modern county to one of the Republic of Texas's founding statesmen.
Why it matters
Naming a frontier county for a Republic-era leader knit the memory of Texas independence into the expanding map of the American West.
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Related people
- · Robert Anderson Irion
- · Sam Houston
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Sherwood Courthouse
Sherwood, TX
Built of locally quarried stone in 1900–1901, this was the first permanent courthouse for Irion County, organized in 1889, replacing a string of temporary quarters. It served as far more than a seat of justice — its rooms and yard hosted dances, teachers' institutes, and summer socials, ringed by a fence and stile to keep grazing stock out and hitching posts for the horses. When a 1936 election moved the county seat to Mertzon, the proud building found new life as a community center.
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Arden took its name from John Arden, a sheep raiser who reached this west Texas range in 1876, and grew into a ranching community as homesteaders filtered in after 1900. Neighbors shared a schoolhouse for Baptist, Church of Christ, and Methodist worship and gathered for camp meetings at a creekside grove. A string of droughts steadily drained the settlement — the post office closed in 1942 and the school in 1947 — leaving Arden among the many west Texas communities that faded back into open country.
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