Lamar County is located in North Texas, along the border of Oklahoma. The county seat is Paris. The Kadohadacho Indians, a tribe of the Caddos, inhabited the area until French and Spanish expeditions came into the area in the eighteenth century. The first recorded mention of Anglo settlers in the area was in 1815.
The land remained a part of the Mexican Government until Texas Independence, when the Texas Legislature passed the ordinance to form Lamar County on December 1840 and incorporated in February 1841. The county's namesake is in honor of Mirabeau B. Lamar, who served as president under the Republic of Texas.
The founders of Lamar County came from Tennessee and Kentucky, and Europeans of English and Irish descent, and utilized the plantation system to farm. The roads built by the state in the 1840s initially helped farmers increase their wealth, but the roads diminished on the eve of the Civil War.
Lamar County voted against secession during the Civil War, but the people took to the Confederate cause and joined General Sam Bell Maxey's Lamar Rifles. Unlike other southern states after the Civil War, the county experienced a population influx and retained its agricultural profile as late as 1900. The introduction of railroads in 1875 aided farmers' production and transportation for the population. The period 1890 to 1940 marked a transition from agriculture to manufacturing, with farms declining significantly.
GENEALOGY
- Joseph Ligon Chapter, DAR
- General Sam Bell Maxey Chapter, SCV Camp 1358
- Lamar Chapter 258, UDC
- Lamar County Genealogical Society
MUSEUM/HISTORIC SITE
Text: http://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/hcl01 Handbook of Texas Online, Texas State Historical Association.