King County
Guthrie, King County, Texas
Marker Inscription
Created Aug. 21, 1876, from Bexar County, whose diamond-shaped boundaries extended from the Rio Grande to the Panhandle to El Paso. Named for William King, who died at the Alamo. Chief industry, ranching, is reflected in its famous cattle brands: "6666," "Pitchfork," "SMS," and "Matador". A population of only 173 in 1890 was aided in formal organization by petitions signed by itinerants. Names of favorite horses were also added. Organization came on June 25, 1891. In establishing county seat, cowboys voted for Guthrie, which won over Ashville, choice of the ranchers. (1965)
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
Carved from the sprawling old Bexar County in 1876, King County was named for William King, who died at the Alamo. Ranching defined it from the start, and its famous cattle brands—the "6666," "Pitchfork," "SMS," and "Matador"—still signal that heritage. With just 173 people in 1890, formal organization in 1891 leaned on petitions padded with the names of itinerants and even favorite horses, and cowboys outvoted the ranchers to make Guthrie the county seat.
Why it matters
It is a portrait of the great cattle-ranching frontier that came to define West Texas identity in the decades after the Civil War.
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Related people
- · William King
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
6666 Ranch
Guthrie, TX
In 1868 Samuel "Burk" Burnett bought 100 head of cattle carrying the "6666" brand and launched a ranching dynasty, moving his operations west into King County around 1900 and registering the famous Four Sixes brand at the county courthouse in 1903. From headquarters at Guthrie, Burnett imported purebred Hereford and Durham bulls whose offspring won livestock shows nationwide, and the ranch's quarter horses became renowned across the Southwest. Now spanning 275,000 acres and still run by Burnett's descendants, the 6666 remains a working monument to the cattle frontier.
King County Courthouse
Guthrie, TX
Sparsely settled King County in the West Texas ranch country lost two courthouses in a row—one to a 1905 tornado, the next to an 1914 fire—before hiring Fort Worth architect Ernest E. Churchill to design a sturdier one that same year. His two-story concrete building, blending Classical Revival with Prairie-style lines, served as the seat of justice until 1982, when it became the county library. It still stands as a monument to the civic hopes of a thinly populated frontier county.
Leo Roark
Guthrie, TX
Born in 1813, Leo Roark came to Texas in 1824 as a boy during the earliest years of Anglo colonization under Mexican rule, and grew up to take part in the Texas War for Independence. He was present at the disturbances at Anahuac, one of the flashpoints that helped spark the Texas Revolution. He lived a long life on the Texas frontier, dying in 1892, and the State of Texas honored him with this marker in 1962.
Pitchfork Ranch
Dickens, TX
About 1879, Irish immigrant Jerry Savage opened an open-range ranch on this West Texas ground. Within a few years St. Louis businessman Eugene F. Williams and cattlemen Dan B. Gardner and Sam Lazarus consolidated the holdings into the Pitchfork Land & Cattle Company in 1883. From dugouts cut into the riverbank the operation grew into a cattle empire whose permanent headquarters date to 1902, eventually swelling to 165,000 acres.