Reagan County
Big Lake, Reagan County, Texas
Marker Inscription
Formed from Tom Green County; created March 7, 1903, organized April 20, 1903. Named in honor of John H. Reagan 1818-1905. Indian fighter and surveyor member of Texas Legislature and United States Congress postmaster general of the southern Confederacy. County seat, Stiles 1903-1925, Big Lake since.
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
Reagan County was carved from Tom Green County and organized in 1903 as ranching and, later, oil pushed settlement across the West Texas plains. It honors John H. Reagan (1818-1905), an Indian fighter, surveyor, and long-serving Texas congressman who became Postmaster General of the Confederacy and later a founding force of the Texas Railroad Commission. The county seat moved from Stiles to Big Lake in 1925.
Why it matters
The county's creation captures the last wave of West Texas settlement, and its namesake links that frontier era to the Confederacy and to the regulation of the railroads that opened the region.
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Related people
- · John H. Reagan
Themes & tags
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