Famous for strawberries, hunting and farmland, the people of Atascosa County, Texas, thrive close to the land.
Contact Heard & Smith, LLP to protect your property, inheritance and future income and benefits.
Atascosa County, Texas
comprises 1,232 square
miles of level to rolling land area in south central Texas in the Rio
Grande Plain region. Atascosa's soils are deep, subsoils are clayey,
and surface layers are loamy. Climate is subtropical-subhumid, with
no significant snowfall and the growing season extends to 282 days per
year. Primarily devoted to farming, Atascosa County has been the
third-largest strawberry grower among Texas counties since 1960.
Eighty percent of all Atascosa County
residents own their own homes. Non-farming employment is generally
provided by the metropolitan areas of Corpus Christie and San Antonio,
with an average commute time of 33 minutes.
Indians of the Coahuiltecan language
group occupied this area, hunting and gathering, for several thousand
years prior to the influx of Spanish explorers who taught them
agriculture, pottery, and masonry. Epidemics of European disease
decimation this native population, along with the nearby Comanches and
Apaches. Total disappearance of these Coahuiltecan Indians, however
appears to be due to assimilation and intermarriage.
The isolation of Atascosa County,
which kept its population low, also preserved it from the ravages of
war, once the Indian Peace was attained. The reprisals, destruction,
and their affect on the economy of the many wars waged in its
neighboring counties, left Atascosa fairly unharmed. After the Civil
war, the Great Northern Railway was built (1881) through the northern
corner of Atascosa County, at Lytle. This brought the great cattle
drives of Texas and a surge in population and prosperity. The 1870's
brought the introduction of cotton, which soon replaced corn as the
major crop in this area. For a brief period, cotton ruled due to the
astounding quality of fiber produced by the soil. Yields and profits
dropped in the 1930's as farmers began to realize the tremendous drain
this crop has on the water table. The discovery of oil in 1917,
helped failing farms and ranches to hold on through the depression.
In 1990, 1,236,387 barrels of oil were produced in Atascosa County.
Atascosa County (Pop.
est in 2002: 40,948) was established in 1856. Navatasco was the
first County Seat, then, in 1858, Pleasanton was chosen. Jourdanton,
the county seat since its founding in 1909, is centrally located in
Atascosa County, approximately 33 miles south of San Antonio and 100
miles northwest of Corpus Christi.
Atascosa County is noted for its
hunting, particularly during the fall and winter deer seasons.
The Poteet Strawberry Festival
is the
largest agricultural festival in
Texas. It
features contests, rodeo performances, concerts by nationally known
Country / Western and Tejano stars, gunslingers, clowns, and many
surprises along with regional food and - Strawberries!
Jourdanton Days Celebration, and the
Cowboy Homecoming and Rodeo in Pleasanton features breakfast,
chili cook-off, cowboy poetry, parade, dances, and a rodeo.
The
Pleasanton Country Club is noted for its Golf course.
A mesquite Trail (1½ mile) starts at
the Visitor Center parking lot of
Laguna Atascosa NWR, the largest protected
area of natural habitat left in the Lower Rio Grande Valley. |
