Johnson County, Texas
History, Records, Facts and Genealogy

Johnson County Facts

Johnson County was created in 1854 and formed from Navarro and McLennan Counties. Johnson County was named for Middleton Tate Johnson, a Texas Ranger, soldier, and politician. The County Seat is Cleburne. The Official County website is located at http://www.johnsoncountytx.org. See also Extended History for more historical details.

Areas adjacent to Johnson County are Tarrant County (north), Ellis County (east), Hill County (south), Bosque County (southwest), Somervell County (southwest), Hood County (west), Parker County (northwest)

The Johnson County Courthouse is one of the most architecturally significant early 20th-century courthouses in North Texas, and it has been the seat of Johnson County government for 75 years. Built at the time of Cleburne's early boom, the Courthouse is a remarkable architectural hybrid featuring exceptional Beaux Arts/Prairie School detailing. Accordingly, it meets Criterion C. As the most visible symbol of government in the county and as a county courthouse since 1913, it meets Criterion A. Contextually the Johnson County Courthouse relates to the Texas County Courthouse 1880-1930.
The resulting Lang & Witchell design for the Johnson County Courthouse is remarkable. While at first glance it appears to be a twin of the firm's Cooke County Courthouse, the proportions and detailing of the Johnson County Courthouse are much finer. The strong Beaux Arts influence remains, but remarkable Sullivanesque pendants and stylized capitals are seen on the exterior of the Cleburne structure. Architectural historian James Wright Steely notes the apparent influence of Finnish architects Eliel Saarinen and Lars Sonck in the design of the clock tower, while architect historian Willard B. Robinson considers the interior `among the most spectacular of any courthouse in the Lone Star State.' The atrium in particular soars six stories and features very fine Sullivanesque foliated detailing, marble walls and an exceptional art glass dome. It should be included in any list of great interior spaces in Texas. Significantly, the Lang & Witchell courthouse drawings were initialed by architect Charles Erwin Barglebaugh, who had trained under and worked for Frank Lloyd Wright and may have been the project architect.

Johnson County, Texas History Books at Amazon.com
Family History Library - The largest collection of free family history, family tree and genealogy records in the world.
Search Historical Newspapers from Texas (1802 - 1993) - Quickly find names and keywords in over 450 million articles, obituaries, marriage notices, birth announcements and other items published in over 2,800 historical U.S. newspapers. New content added monthly!
Stories, Memories & Histories - Stories and histories compiled by others researching a person or area can be an amazing source of information about your ancestors. Not only do they generally contain dates and places of vital events like birth, marriage, and death, but they often relate stories and memories that help you really get to know the character of your ancestors.
Search Texas Historical Records - Databases include Court, Land, Wills & Financial Records; Birth, Marriage & Death Records; Voter Lists & Census Records; Immigration & Emigration Records; Obituary Records; Military Records; Family Tree Records; Pictures; Stories, Memories & Histories; Directories & Member Lists and much more....

Johnson County Court Records

Johnson County Vital Records

Johnson County Census Records

Johnson County Maps & Atlases

Johnson County Military Records

Johnson County Tax Records

Johnson County Genealogical Addresses

Johnson County Church & Cemeteries

Family Trees & Genealogy Tidbits

The use of published genealogies, electronic files containing genealogical lineage, and other compiled sources can be of tremendous value to a researcher.

When view family trees online or not, be sure to only take the info at face value and always follow up with your own sources or verify the ones they provide. Below is a list of online resources for Johnson County Family Trees, web forums and other family type information. Email us with websites containing Johnson County Family Trees, web forums and other family type information by clicking the link below:

Search for Local Texas Researchers or Earn Money by becoming a Local Texas Researcher!
Search 60 Years Of Everton Data: For the first time ever you can get access to more than 150,000 pedigree files and family group sheets from Evertons. Learn More
Search the Family Tree DNA Project- Use DNA testing to break through your genealogical barriers!
Sites on USGenweb: [ Johnson County ] [ Texas ] [ Main Page ]
[GenForum Message Boards] [Rootsweb Message Boards]
Genealogy Encyclopedia: General Abbreviations, Early Illnesses, Nickname Meanings, Worldwide Epidemics, Early Occupations, Common Terms, Censuses Explained, Free Genealogical Forms
Nichols and Related Families of Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Florida, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, and Virgina.
The Texas Family Group Sheet Project
Family Trees - Ancestry has thousands of family trees shared by other members. They can help you identify how ancestors are related and give you clues about birth, marriage, and death information. Family trees are an excellent resource for filling in gaps in your research or even to simply know where to begin.
Pictures - One of the more exciting discoveries in doing family history research is finding a photograph of your ancestors or their residence. Finding historic postcard photos and drawings of towns and important events throughout history can also give you a visual look into your ancestors lives.
Reference Materials & Finding Aids - Reference materials, including dictionaries, encyclopedias, and other how-to books, can be tremendously helpful in finding and interpreting historical documents. Many of these books can help you learn where to look for more information and how to use what you've already found to uncover more clues.
Johnson County, Texas Family Books at Amazon.com

Extended History

No permanent Indian villages existed in what is now Johnson County, though Indians, including Tonkawas, Kickapoos, Anadarkos, Caddos, and Wacos, hunted in the area. In 1851 the Caddo Indians led an uprising that forced many of the early settlers to abandon their homes, most of which were subsequently burned. No other serious Indian conflicts occurred.

The earliest European and Anglo-American explorers did not establish permanent settlements in Johnson County. The Moscoso expedition may have passed through in 1542. Pedro Vial apparently traveled through the area in 1788 on his way from Santa Fe to Natchitoches, Louisiana. It is claimed that Philip Nolan, the soldier of fortune associated with Gen. James Wilkinson, was attacked and killed with some of his party in the 1820s on the river that bears his name. Under Mexican rule the area was successively a part of the Department of Bexar, the Department of the Brazos, and Viesca Municipality. Settlement began under the auspices of Robertson's colony. In the 1840s the northern half of the county was included in the Peters colony and the southern half in the Mercer colony.

The initial permanent settlements came in the mid-1840s. Charles and George Barnard established a trading post near Comanche Peak in an area no longer in Johnson County. The earliest known resident of what is now Johnson County was Henry Briden, who settled on the Nolan River in 1849. The county was marked off in 1854 from Ellis, Navarro, and Hill counties. Its population was then 700. Its name came from Middleton T. Johnson, who had served in the Mexican War, on the Texas frontier, and in the Civil War, and was later a legislator. The first county seat was Wardville, named for Thomas William Ward, second commissioner of the General Land Office of Texas. In 1856 Buchanan, named after the newly elected president of the United States, became the county seat. After the western portion of the county was severed in 1867 to form Hood County, Cleburne, which was named after Gen. Patrick Cleburne, was chosen county seat. In 1881 a section of Ellis County was added to Johnson County, thus completing its current boundaries.

The federal census of 1860 was the first to include Johnson County. That year the population totaled 4,305. Slaves numbered 513, 11.9 percent. Livestock was the primary industry, and Indian corn was the largest crop. In 1861 Johnson County overwhelmingly supported secession; the county commissioners declared war on the United States. Almost all able-bodied white adult males participated in the war, and the slave population nearly doubled during the war as refugees entered with their slaves. After the war the black population dwindled. By 1900 approximately 1 percent of the population was black, and, although the percentage increased slightly in the early twentieth century, by 1990 African Americans made up only 2.6 percent of county residents.

After Reconstruction Johnson County began to develop more rapidly. Between 1870 and 1880 the population increased from 4,923 to 17,911. During this same period the county exercised considerable political influence, especially among farmers' groups. Barzillai J. Chambers, who acquired land in the area as a surveyor in the 1840s and who, with W. F. Henderson, donated the land for the current county seat, was the vice-presidential nominee on the Greenback party ticket with James B. Weaver in 1880. In 1886 the state Farmers' Alliance met at Lee's Academy and adopted a set of resolutions commonly called the Cleburne Demands. These precedent-setting resolutions included a call for restrictions on corporations, support for a national interstate-commerce law, expansion of the money supply through issuance of treasury notes, payoff of the national debt through the coining of specie, and provisions supporting labor. Some of these ideas were later incorporated into the People's (Populist) party platform. James Stephen Hogg, who later became governor, was on the staff of Johnson County's first newspaper, the Cleburne Chronicle, established in 1868. Another prominent state leader and contemporary of Hogg, Martin M. Crane, lived in Johnson County.

The Democratic party dominated politics in the county after the Civil War and into the twentieth century, but since World War II Johnson County has often voted Republican in national elections. Truman carried the county overwhelmingly in 1948, and Adlai Stevenson won by 511 votes in 1952. In 1956, however, the county voted for Republican Dwight D. Eisenhower, and in 1960 Richard Nixon took the county. Though Democrats carried the county in 1964 and 1968, the area voted Republican in almost every presidential election from 1972 through 2004. The only exception was in 1976, when Democrat Jimmy Carter won a majority of the county's votes.

Most major Christian denominations established themselves early in Johnson County. The first minister, Simeon Odem, was a Methodist who moved into the area before the county was organized. Other denominations followed soon thereafter. The Episcopal Church of the Holy Comforter was started in 1871. The church building, completed within the next two years, was still in use in the late 1980s. In 1877 Seventh-day Adventists began work in Johnson County. In 1893 a site was chosen five miles east of Cleburne for an Adventist school. Eventually the Keene Industrial Academy evolved into a junior college and then a full four-year institution, Southwestern Adventist College, and was renamed Southwestern Adventist University in 1989.

The oldest settlements in Johnson County were in the east. The site of Alvarado was settled in 1851, and the town was platted in 1853. Grandview (originally two words), founded around 1860, was the second community established. In 1890 the population of the two was 1,342 and 713. The early county seats, Wardville and Buchanan, no longer exist. Both Joshua and Burleson were established as depots in 1882. The town of Keene grew up around the college. Other communities in the county include Rio Vista, south of Cleburne, and Godley, to the northwest.

Until the late twentieth century the economy of Johnson County was mainly tied to agriculture. The total value of farm production in 1870 was $192,716. Twenty years later the total was $1,554,960. Although corn remained a major crop, cotton production increased from 1,212 bales in 1870 to 18,826 bales in 1890. The vicinity of Venus, on the eastern edge of the county, was considered a major cotton-growing area. Livestock production also increased over this same twenty-year span. Land ownership in the county was concentrated in the hands of relatively few people; of the 2,829 farms listed in the 1890 census, 1,232 (43.55 percent) were involved in some type of sharecropping system. By 1900 sharecroppers had increased to 48.8 percent. Of the forty-nine black farmers that year, only ten owned their own land. Although the local economic benefits may have been negligible, the Chisholm Trail crossed the Brazos and extended north through the county.

An important change in the economic climate came with the railroads. The first railroad to be constructed in the county passed through Venus in 1854. In 1881 Cleburne was connected by rail with Dallas. That same year the Gulf, Colorado and Santa Fe was completed through Johnson County. This line was eventually extended to connect the Texas coast with the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe line in the north. In 1898 Santa Fe repair shops were opened in Cleburne. They constituted a vital part of the local economy and included maintenance and construction facilities and a switchyard. Other early railroads in the county included the Missouri, Kansas and Texas (Katy) and the Texas and Brazos Valley, commonly known as the Boll Weevil.

Johnson County entered the twentieth century as a rural county. The total population in 1900 was 33,819, with only 22.2 percent urban. The only major town was Cleburne, which had a population of 7,493. Between 1900 and 1960 the population remained fairly stable; it reached a peak of 37,286 in 1920, only to decline for the next twenty years. For many years Johnson County's proximity to Fort Worth did not affect its growth, even though an interurban railroad did operate between Cleburne and Fort Worth from 1912 through the 1920s. Burleson, the closest community to Fort Worth, did not appear on the census rolls at all until 1920; in that year it had only 241 residents. The influence of Dallas and Fort Worth began to be felt in the second half of the twentieth century. Johnson County was designated first as a part of the Fort Worth Standard Metropolitan Statistical area and later as part of the Dallas-Fort Worth SMSA, an indication of its economic ties to the area. Although the 1960 county population was still only 34,720, the population of Burleson in the north had reached 2,345, a 196 percent increase since 1950. The next decade saw an increase of 224 percent as Burleson became a bedroom community to the expanding Fort Worth area. The growth resulted in the establishment of an ancillary courthouse in Burleson. The county's rapid development in the late twentieth century was reflected in the overall county population, which rose to 45,769 in 1970, showing an increase of 33 percent. The number of people living in the area reached 67,649 by 1980 and 97,165 by 1990.

In 2000, the census counted 126,811 people living in the county. About 84 percent were Anglo, 3 percent were black, and 12 percent were Hispanic. Almost 77 percent of the residents age twenty-five and older were high school graduates, and almost 14 percent had college degrees. In the early twenty-first century agribusiness, the railroad shops, and some manufacturing and distribution activities were the central elements of the area's economy, though many residents commuted to Fort Worth to work. In 2002 the county had 2,579 farms and ranches covering 362,004 acres, 47 percent of which were devoted to pasture and 46 percent to crops. In that year local farmers and ranchers earned $43,601,000; livestock sales accounted for $36,847,000 of the total. Dairy cattle, beef cattle, hay, horses, cotton, sorghum, wheat, oats, and hogs were the chief agricultural products. Cleburne (2000 population, 26,005) remained the county's largest town and the seat of government. Other communities include Burleson (20,976, partly in Tarrant County), Keene (5,003), Joshua (4,528), Alvarado (3,288), Grandview (1,358), Venus (910), Godley (879), Rio Vista (656), Briaroaks (493), and Cross Timber (277).

Texas Highway 187, a four-lane divided highway , connects Cleburne, Joshua, and Burleson to Fort Worth. U.S. Highway 67 connects the county seat with Dallas. Interstate Highway 35 cuts across the eastern part of Johnson County, connecting Dallas and Fort Worth with the high-growth areas to the south. In addition to these, Cleburne is served by the Fort Worth and Western Railroad, the Burlington Northern Santa Fe railroad, and Amtrak. Lake Pat Cleburne and Cleburne State Recreational Park provide recreational facilities. Lakes Whitney and Granbury border the county. The Layland Museum in Cleburne occupies the bottom level of the original Carnegie Library building (see CARNEGIE LIBRARIES), completed in 1904. The top floor, a refurbished auditorium, is home to a theatrical group, the Carnegie Players. In addition to Southwestern Adventist University, Hill Junior College in Hillsboro offers extension work in Cleburne and several other Johnson County communities.

Johnson County, Texas
History, Records, Facts and Genealogy

Johnson County Court Records

See Also Texas Land Records, Marriage Records, Court & Probate Records

Johnson County Vital Records

See Also Vital Records in Texas

Johnson County Census Records

See Also Research In Census Records & Statewide Records that exist for Texas

Johnson County Maps & Atlases

See Also Research In State Map Collections

Johnson County Military Records

See Also Military Records in Texas

Johnson County Tax Records

See Also Research In Tax Records

Johnson County Genealogical Addresses

See Also Other Texas Genealogical Addresses

Johnson County Church & Cemeteries

See Also Church & Cemetery Records in Texas

Family Trees & Genealogy Tidbits

Extended History

Johnson County, Texas History, Records, Facts and Genealogy

Johnson County Court Records

See Also Texas Land Records, Marriage Records, Court & Probate Records

Johnson County Vital Records

See Also Vital Records in Texas

Johnson County Census Records

See Also Research In Census Records & Statewide Records that exist for Texas

Johnson County Maps & Atlases

See Also Research In State Map Collections

Johnson County Military Records

See Also Military Records in Texas

Johnson County Tax Records

See Also Research In Tax Records

Johnson County Genealogical Addresses

See Also Other Texas Genealogical Addresses

Johnson County Church & Cemeteries

See Also Church & Cemetery Records in Texas

Family Trees & Genealogy Tidbits

Extended History

Johnson County, Texas
History, Records, Facts and Genealogy