Notice of Tax Rates. Haysinformed Emergency Information. Financial Transparency. What is the meeting all about? Join our Development Services team for a look into stormwater issues and environmental protections for our rivers, lakes and other waterways. What will you do at this meting? Learn more about how Development Services works to protect Hays County offices will be closed on Thursday, Nov. We thank each of our U. The many springs in the area that is now Hays County have attracted numerous visitors.
Archeological findings indicate the presence of Paleo-Indian people near San Marcos Springs at least 8, years ago, and excavations at the Timmeron Site, west of Wimberley, reveal that Tonkawa Indians practiced farming in the area around A.
Denis was attacked by Apaches in at the San Marcos River crossing. A mission to be called San Marcos was authorized in near the site of present San Marcos, but the authorization was later rescinded in favor of San Antonio.
San Xavier Mission and San Francisco Xavier Presidio were located briefly at the site in —56, but no permanent settlement was attempted until , when some eighty persons were moved to the Old San Antonio Road crossing of the San Marcos River. San Marcos de Neve , one of a chain of defense settlements, was abandoned four years later, after flooding and attacks by Comanche and Tonkawa Indians.
McGehee , was issued a league of land in by the Mexican government and was farming north of the site of present San Marcos in On March 1, , the state legislature formed Hays County from territory formerly part of Travis County. William W. Moon, Eli T. Edward Burleson , a member of the Texas Senate, to have the new county named for Hays.
County organization and the designation of San Marcos as county seat gave impetus to settlement; the population grew from in to 2, in The county shrank slightly on February 12, , when it lost acreage to the new Blanco County and gained a portion of Comal County.
On January 10, , the legislature again transferred another small area to Blanco County. Boundaries remained stable for nearly a century, until resurvey of the Hays-Travis county line in added over 16, acres to Hays County. A stage line from Austin to San Antonio crossed the county in , the year that Edward Burleson built the first sawmill. Thompson built the first cotton gin in the early s, and between and Ezekiel Nance built and operated five gins, five gristmills, a sawmill, a shingle mill, and a beef packery.
Alfred B. Kerr organized the first church in Hays County in , and a school was built at San Marcos in Another school was opened at Snake Lake in , and John D. Pitts built a school in Stringtown before Johnson Institute , founded in by Thomas Jefferson Johnson , drew students from a large area of Central Texas until it closed in With the coming of the Civil War a majority of the residents favored secession.
Peter C. During the war county beef helped to feed Confederate forces. Shortly after the war's end Col. George F. Snyder, a Georgian, established the first newspaper in Hays County, the Pioneer. George Neill drove the first herd of cattle from Hays County to Kansas in , and other drives followed. Farming also became more profitable in the eastern part of the county and helped encourage a fresh influx of settlers.
By the county was out of debt, several new communities had been organized, and schools had grown in number to match the increased population.
Coronal Institute was founded in and the San Marcos public school system in Southwest Texas Normal School was authorized at the turn of the century and opened in as a teacher-training institution; it became Southwest Texas State University in San Marcos Baptist Academy was established in Another population boom followed the railroad.
The county population nearly doubled, from 7, in to 14, in , and then remained virtually unchanged for the next fifty years, despite the influences of World War I and the depression of the s. Even the economic stimulus of World War II had only momentary effect. Hays County remained predominantly agricultural; almost 90 percent of the mids farm income came from livestock. Not until the establishment of the Gary Job Corps Training Center on the site of the former Gary Air Force Base in and the growth of enrollment at the university in San Marcos did Hays County begin a period of steady growth-from 19, in to 27, in , 40, in , and 65, in Although agriculture remained significant in county economics, nonagricultural income, primarily at the educational and training facilities, played an even larger role.
The ethnic and racial composition of Hays County is difficult to document with precision, but certain broad features emerge from the county's census history. One discernible trend is a slow but consistent proportional decrease of African Americans in the county. Slaves were a primary source of labor in the county's early history, and Blacks constituted more than a third of the county population by the end of antebellum Texas.
Just twenty years after the onset of the Civil War, however, fewer than 20 percent of the residents were Black. The decrease slowed briefly during the Great Depression , but by the Black population had dropped to less than 10 percent, and by the census it amounted to less than 3 percent. There is still less data regarding another major ethnic group in the county, Mexican Americans.
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