Castro County was created in 1876
(Organized in 1891)
and formed from Bexar and Young Counties. Castro County was named for Henri Castro, a French consul general for the Republic of Texas and founder of a colony in Texas. The County Seat is Dimmitt. The Official County website is located at http://www.co.castro.tx.us. See also Extended History for more historical details.
The original Castro County courthouse was a simple wood frame structure with no dividing walls. This made the courthouse an excellent place for weekend dances, and cowboys would sometimes climb a ladder into the copula on top to play poker. This $17,000 structure was struck by lightening resulting in a fire that burned the building to the ground. A steel vault saved the county records. The current courthouse was built in Contemporary style in 1939, designed by the firm of Townes & Funk and built of sandstone for a cost of $90,000.
PLEASE READ!! Please call the clerk's department to confirm hours, mailing address, fees and other specifics before visiting or requesting information because of sometimes changing contact information.
Castro County Clerk has Court Records from 1892, Land Records from 1891, Probate Records from 1891 , Marriage Records from 1891 and Birth/Death Records from 1903 is located at 100
E. Bedford,
Dimmitt, TX 79027-2643; Telephone:
(806) 647-3338 . The County Clerk's Office is the record keeper of the county. The county records include birth certificates, death certificates, marriage licenses, brand registrations, DD214s (military discharges), land / real estate / property records, probate and civil filings.
Below is a list of online resources for Castro County Court Records. Email us with websites containing Castro County Court Records by clicking the link below:
Texas Immigration & Emigration Records - Immigration records help the family historian to understand the movements of their ancestry as they relocated to different parts of the world.
Click Here to Search Texas Birth, Marriage & Death Records! - Birth, marriage, and death records are connected with central life events. They are prime sources for genealogical information. Look also for baptism, christening, and burial records in this collection.
Vital Records,1100 West 49th Street,
Austin, TX 78756, Please allow up to approximately 6-8 weeks for processing of all type of certificates when ordered through the mail. They have the following records:
Birth Certificates: Birth records maintained by Bureau of Vital Statistics, Dept. of Health since 1903 through the present. For births that occurred within the past 75 years, copies can be requested only by the immediate family of the person whose name is on the birth certificate.
Cost: The cost of a birth record is $22.00. If no record is found or no copy is made, state law requires that we keep $22.00 for a searching fee. Please do not send cash in the mail.
Processing Time: 6-8 weeks when ordered by MAIL or 2-5 Days when you order ELECTRONICALLY
Death Certificates: Death records maintained by Bureau of Vital Statistics, Dept. of Health since 1903 through the present.
For deaths that occurred in the past 25 years, copies can be requested only by immediate family members of the deceased.
Cost: The cost of a certified death certificate is $20.00 for the first copy and $3.00 for each additional copy issued at the same time for the same certificate. If no record is found or no copy is made, state law requires that we keep $20.00 for a searching fee. Please do not send cash in the mail.
Processing Time: 6-8 weeks when ordered by MAIL or 2-5 Days when you order ELECTRONICALLY
Marriage & Divorce Certificates: Marriage Verifications from Jan 1966 and Divorce Verifications from Jan 1968. Certified copies of marriage licenses or divorce decrees are only available from the county clerk (marriage) or district clerk (divorce) in the county or district in which the event occurred. Marriage verification or divorce verification letters can now be ordered ELECTRONICALLY
Cost: $20 - Fee is for verification only.
Processing Time: 6-8 weeks when ordered by MAIL or 2-5 Days when you order ELECTRONICALLY
Order Online: You can also order Order Electronically and get the certificates within 2-5 days by ordering below
Order In Person: The certificates may be ordered by coming into this office. If you want the copy the same day, our hours for same day service are 8:00 A.M. until 5:00 P.M. Monday – Friday. The Texas Vital Statistics Office in Austin is located at 1100 W. 49th Street,
Austin, TX 78756.
Order By Mail: Mail a check or money order (no cash) payable to the "Texas Vital Records " along with the necessary information to the following address: Texas Vital Records, Department of State Health Services, PO Box 12040,
Austin TX 78711-2040. Please include return address on envelope and application form.
Search the Social Security Death Index for FREE - Search over 82 million death records and get genealogical information crucial to your family research. New content added weekly! Most comprehensive SSDI site online!
Research Death records In The World's Largest Newspaper Archive at NewpaperArchive.com! - Find thousands of historical Texas newspaper articles about deaths. Search for local articles about an old family friend that died many years ago or a celebrity that committed suicide. Historical newspapers contain a wealth of information about the deceased.
Texas Birth Certificates, 1903-10, 1926-29 - Browse by county, then year, then surname, beginning with the first letters of the last name of the person you seek. If you're unsure of the year or location, use the search box under the browse menu. These records can be searched by father's first and last names, mother's first and maiden names, year, county, and city. The certificates include the child and parents' full names, residence, occupations, age, time and date of the birth, and the name of the physician attending the birth.
Texas Death Certificates, 1890-1976 - These records are searchable by first and last name of the deceased, year, county, and city. A certificate may include the decedent's date, place, and cause of death; age; date of birth; last residence; and marital status. If known, it will also include occupation, birth place, parents' names, and place of burial. Browse by county, then year, then surname, beginning with the first letters of the last name of the person you seek. If unsure of the year or location, use the search box under the browse menu.
Click Here to Search Texas Voter Lists & Census Records! - Few, if any, records reveal as many details about individuals and families as do government census records. Substitute records can be used when the official census is unavailable.
Countywide Records: Federal Population Schedules that exist for Castro County, Texas are 1880, 1890 (fragment, see below), 1900, 1910, 1920 and 1930. The Texas State Library holds microfilm editions for all of Texas' federal censuses. Although the 1850, 1860, and part of the 1870 mortality schedules have been published, all the original mortality schedules are at the Texas State Library and on microfilm The 1830 territorial census of Miller County, Arkansas, enumerates an area that is in today's Texas boundaries. The remaining 1890 population schedules which exist for Texas include: Ellis County (Justice Precinct 6, Mountain Peak, and Ovilla Precinct); Hood County (Precinct 5); Rusk County (No. 6 and Justice Precinct No. 7); Trinity County (town of Trinity and Justice Precinct 2); and Kaufman County (Kaufman). Although Greer County in present-day Oklahoma functioned as part of Texas between 1886 and 1896, the 1890 census for this county was enumerated under Oklahoma Territory.
Below is a list of online resources for Castro County Census Records. Email us with websites containing Castro County Census Records by clicking the link below:
Genealogy Atlas has images of old American atlases during the years 1795, 1814, 1822, 1823, 1836, 1838, 1845, 1856, 1866, 1879 and 1897 for Arkansas and other states.
You can view rotating animated maps for Texas showing all the county boundaries for each census year overlayed with past and present maps so you can see the changes in county boundaries. You can view a list of maps for other states at Census Maps
You can view rotating animated maps for Texas showing all the county boundary changes for each year overlayed with past and present maps so you can see the changes in county boundaries. You can view a list of maps for other states and State Department of Transportation Maps at County Maps.
Below is a list of online resources for Castro County Maps. Email us with websites containing Castro County Maps by clicking the link below:
Click Here to Search Texas Military Records! - Military and civil service records provide unique facts and insights into the lives of men and women who have served their country at home and abroad.
The uses and value of military records in genealogical research for ancestors who were veterans are obvious, but military records can also be important to re-searchers whose direct ancestors were not soldiers in any war. The fathers, grandfathers, brothers, and other close relatives of an ancestor may have served in a war, and their service or pension records could contain information that will assist in further identifying the family of primary interest. Due to the amount of genealogical information contained in some military pension files, they should never be overlooked during the research process. Those records not containing specific genealogical information are of historic value and should be included in any overall research design.
Below is a list of online resources for Castro County Military Records. Email us with websites containing Castro County Military Records by clicking the link below:
Revolutionary War Rolls, 1775-1783 (The National Archives): View, Print Copy & Save Original Documents in NARA publication M246 include muster rolls, payrolls, strength returns, and other miscellaneous personnel, pay, and supply records of American Army units, 1775-83.
Southern Claims Commission from the State of Texas (The National Archives): View, Print Copy & Save Original Documents In the 1870s, southerners claimed compensation from the U.S. government for items used by the Union Army, ranging from corn and horses, to trees and church buildings.
Texas tax records constitute one of the most complete sets of available records generated at the county level (by the Commissioners Court) because these documents are maintained by the state. These lists may only include approximately sixty percent of eligible males over the age of twenty-one. Persons exempted from taxes included native Americans, "idiots," "incompetents," and those exempted because of age. This final category of exemptions varied over time. Years without an older age exemption were 1840 and 1862-70. Between 1841-44 exemptions began at forty-five years; in 1845 and from 1850-61 the upward age was set at fifty years. In 1837, 1848, and 1849 the limit was established as fifty-five, and in 1846-7, and 1871 the upward limit was set at sixty years.
Texas Ad Valorem (poll, personal, and real property) tax records for 1836 through 1976 are available in microfilm at the Texas State Library from the date of respective county organization; these are arranged by county and date and are somewhat alphabetized within each division. Microfilm copies are housed in the Genealogy Section. Tax lists for the various counties from creation to 1901 may be borrowed through interlibrary loan. Tax records through 1901-1947 are readily accessible, but not on interlibrary loan. Those for 1948 through 1976 can be obtained upon request.
Below is a list of online resources for Castro County Tax Records. Email us with websites containing Castro County Tax Records by clicking the link below:
The Repositories
in this section are Archives, Libraries, Museums, Genealogical
and Historical Societies. Many County Historical and Genealogical
Societies publish magazines and/or news letters on a monthly,
quarterly, bi-annual or annual basis. Contacting the local societies
should not be over looked. State Archives and Societies are
usually much larger and better organized with much larger archived
materials than their smaller county cousins but they can be
more generalized and over look the smaller details that local
societies tend to have. Libraries can also be a good place to
look for local information. Some libraries have a genealogy
section and may have some resources that are not located at
archives or societies. Also, take a special look at any museums
in the area. They sometimes have photos and items from years
gone by as well as information of a genealogical interest. All
these places are vitally important to the family genealogist
and must not be passed over.
Below is a list of online resources for Castro County Genealogical Addresses. Email us with websites containing Castro County Genealogical Addresses by clicking the link below:
Castro County Genealogical Society, PO Box 911, Dimmitt, TX 79027
Texas State Library and Archives Commission, P.O. Box 12927, Austin, TX 78711-2927 Holdings under the auspices of the Texas State Library are divided. Most important for genealogical research are the Texas State Archives with its Local Records Department, the Records Management Division, and the Information Services Division, which includes a Genealogy Section and a Reference Department.
The Genealogy Section maintains vertical ties that contain notes, clippings, pamphlets, and correspondence on Texas families. These files may be accessed in person, by phone (512-463-5463, forty-five minute limit), or through correspondence.
Texas Historical Commision The Texas Historical Commission (THC) is the state agency for historic preservation. THC staff consults with citizens and organizations to preserve Texas' architectural, archeological and cultural landmarks. The agency is recognized nationally for its preservation programs.
Texas Newspapers & Periodicals Records - Newspapers and periodicals are the diaries of local communities. They are excellent sources of family history details - often recorded nowhere else. Look for obituaries, marriages, legal notices, and more found in our Historical Newspaper Archives.
Click Here to Search Texas Obituary Records! - This database is a compilation of obituaries published in U.S. newspapers, collected from various online sources. Obituaries can vary in the amount of information they contain, but many of them are genealogical goldmines, including information such as names, dates, places of birth and death, marriage information, and family relationships.
During Texas's colonization period Roman Catholics were the most numerous, but early citizens included those representing other religious faiths such as Baptist, Methodist, Presbyterian, and Christian or Disciples of Christ.
Many cemetery records have been collected and transcribed, including the largest of which is multi-volumes compilation by the DAR and two volumes for Peters Colonists and descendants. The DAR collection, also microfilmed, is available at the Texas State Library and through the FHL.
Some Texas county historical and genealogical societies have published local cemetery and/funeral home records. These are normally available for purchase through the respective society. Two references can help determine which cemeteries have been recorded: Kim Parsons', A Reference to Texas Cemetery Records (Humble, Tex.: by author, 1988), arranged by county; and Sharry Crofford-Gould's, Texas Cemetery Inscriptions: A Source Index (San Antonio, Tex.: Limited Editions, 1977).
Below is a list of online resources for Castro County Cemetery & Church Records. Email us with websites containing Castro County Cemetery & Church Records by clicking the link below:
Find Obituaries in The World's Largest Newspaper Archive at NewpaperArchive.com! - Find thousands of Texas obituaries to help you research your family history. Search for a Texas newspaper obituary about your ancestor or a celebrity. Begin your search today and find death notices and funeral announcements printed in newspapers from Texas.
Click Here to Search Texas Family Tree Records! - 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 Castro County Family Trees, web forums and other family type information. Email us with websites containing Castro County Family Trees, web forums and other family type information by clicking the link below:
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.
Texas Family & Local History Records - The Family & Local Histories Collection lets you read journals, memoirs, and other first-hand historical narratives right on your computer. Gathered from some of the world's finest libraries, these materials may provide hard-to-find town, county, and state information; tax records and wills; military, church, and court records; as well as photographs, stories, and maps.
The area now known as Castro County was once occupied by Apaches, who were forced out of the region by Comanches around 1720. The Comanches ruled the Panhandle-Plains area until they were defeated by the United States Army in the Red River War of 1874. The Indians were confined to reservations in Indian Territory during 1875 and 1876. Buffalo hunters arrived in the region in 1876 and by the early 1880s had eliminated the last remnants of the formerly huge herds. The Texas legislature established Castro County in 1876.
Ranchers began to arrive in the county in the early and middle 1880s. James W. Carter brought his family in 1884 and established a medium-sized ranch of seventy-two sections, the 7-UP Ranch, in the southwestern part of the county on Running Water Draw. Other ranches, headquartered in surrounding counties, controlled Castro County lands. The XIT Ranch held some land in the southern and western parts of the county, while the T Anchor Ranch controlled some of the land in the north. The Cross L had lands in southeastern Castro County, and the Circle Cross controlled ranges in the eastern part of the county. In 1888 Lysius Gough filed on land south of the site of present-day Dimmitt, and in 1889 James L. Beach and his six sons from Grayson County each filed on sections of land in the same general area and dug dugouts (see DUGOUT), confident that a county seat would be soon be established nearby. In 1890 only nine people lived in Castro County; most of them were members of the Carter family.
Between 1890 and 1900 Castro County slowly developed but remained a sparsely populated stock-farming and ranching region. Some settlers arrived in the nineties to claim land for agricultural or commercial uses. On March 4, 1890, the Bedford Town and Land Development Company was formed in Grayson County with H. G. Bedford as president. On May 27, the company, eager to establish a county seat for Castro County, bought a section of land near the center of the county, dug a well, built a water tower, and platted a town. The new town was called Dimmitt because of the close bond between H. G. Bedford and the Rev. W. C. Dimmitt, a partner in the venture. In 1890 and 1891 a number of settlers, including Ira Aten, Thornton and Will Jones, Mrs. M. B. Fowle, the Tates, the Turnbows, and the J. E. Turners, moved into the county and established themselves near Dimmitt.
By 1891 Castro County's new settlers felt a need for local government. A petition for organization was circulated in August 1891. Meanwhile, developers of different townsites were competing for the location of the county seat, though only one of the proposed sites, Castro City, posed a real threat to the Bedford group. After much struggle to obtain the 150 names necessary for organization, the petition was presented to the Oldham County Commissioners Court on December 9, 1891. Castro County was formally organized by an election on December 21, and Dimmitt was designated the county seat. By 1900, seventy-six farms and ranches in the county encompassed 191,362 acres of land (including 12,131 acres classified as "improved"), and the county's population had risen to 400.
Soon after 1900 the XIT and other Panhandle ranches began to sell lands to arriving settlers, and the advent of German farmers in the eastern part of the county between 1902 and 1906 helped to stimulate farming on a large scale. The German immigrants came to Castro County as a result of the colonization efforts of a Catholic priest, Father Joseph Reisdorff. Reisdorff, founder of other German colonies at Rhineland, Windthorst, and Slaton, began his Castro County promotions in league with an Irish Catholic, Tom McCormick, who had lived in the eastern part of the county since 1892. McCormick's attempt to establish an Irish Catholic colony named Wind on his property in 1892 had failed, so he was amenable to Reisdorff's plans. Reisdorff established a town, Nazareth, in 1902 to serve as the center of his new colony.
The Germans and other newcomers took up both farming and stock raising, and farming gradually grew in importance over the years. Meanwhile, a rapid rise in agricultural mechanization, coupled with a rising demand for agricultural products in the 1920s, helped to stimulate the county's farm economy. The number of farms in the area consequently grew steadily between 1900 and 1930. By 1910, 327 had been established in Castro County, 365 by 1920, 521 by 1925, and 751 by 1930. Corn, sorghum, and, especially, wheat, were the principal crops grown by these new farmers; by 1930 crops were harvested on more than 220,000 acres of land in the county, including 132,665 acres devoted to wheat production. The number of cattle also grew during this period. In 1900 about 9,500 head were counted in Castro County; by 1930 the census counted almost 31,460. As the agricultural economy developed, county population grew: Castro County had 1,850 residents in 1910 and 1,948 in 1920; in 1930 the census enumerated 4,720.
The hard years of the Great Depression marked an end to this first period of development; during the 1930s crop production dropped and some farmers were forced to give up their lands. In 1939 farmers harvested only about 212,000 acres in the county, and the number of farms had dropped to 703; the population declined during the depression to 4,631.
After World War II, however, the county's economy began to expand again as underground irrigation water began to play an important role in the local farming economy and farming acreage increased. By the 1980s more than 400,000 acres of Castro County (over 70 percent of county lands) was under cultivation, with over 300,000 acres irrigated by underground water. As the farming economy grew, the county prospered. Population rose in 1950 to 5,417, to 8,923 in 1960, to 10,394 in 1970, and to 10,556 in 1980. Over the next two decades, however, it shrank; only 9,070 people lived in Castro County in 1992, and 8,285 in 2000.
The transportation system of Castro County has developed along with the area's economy and population. Crude wagon roads of the 1890s evolved into dirt auto roads by the World War I era. Most of these wound across the county along section lines and fence lines. By the mid-1920s a graded dirt road linked Dimmitt to Tulia via Nazareth and Bovina. Ungraded dirt roads also ran from Dimmitt to Hereford and from Dimmitt to Plainview. In the 1930s Work Projects Administration projects in Castro County included the construction of caliche auto roads in and around Dimmitt. After 1934 the Texas State Highway Department began to build and maintain intercounty dirt roads, which were paved after World War II. The county's first paved highway, State Highway 86, from Dimmitt to Tulia, was not completed until 1941. Castro County was thus the last Texas county to acquire a paved road. In the years between the 1940s and the 1960s, a network of paved farm-to-market roads evolved to link the rural parts of the county to main routes (see HIGHWAY DEVELOPMENT).
Railroads came into the area relatively late. The county's only rail line is a branch of the Fort Worth and Denver Railway built from Plainview to Dimmitt in 1928. The Pecos and Northern Texas Railway, an Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe subsidiary, built across the far northwestern corner of the county in 1898 but made no real contribution to the local economy.
The voters of Castro County favored the Democratic candidate in virtually every presidential election from 1900 through 1968. The only exception occurred in 1952, when Republican Dwight Eisenhower won a majority of the county's votes. After 1972, when Republican Richard Nixon carried the county over Democrat George McGovern, the area began to trend Republican. Though Democrat Jimmy Carter took the county in 1976, the area went Republican in every presidential election from 1980 through 2004.
By the 1980s Castro County was ranked as one of the state's most productive agricultural counties. Its yearly average crop, valued at over $195 million, consisted principally of corn, wheat, sorghum, cotton, soybeans, sugarbeets, and vegetables. The county maintains several large vegetable-processing plants. The cattle feedlot industry developed on a large scale after the 1950s and reached a capacity of over 200,000 head. In 1972 a large sheep feedlot went into production with a capacity of 20,000 head. Since then two or three large-scale hog operations have been started. The county also has a fertilizer industry and a number of cotton gins. In 2000 Castro County's farmers and ranchers earned $668,400,000 and the area ranked first in the state and nineteenth in the nation in agricultural receipts. Ranchers raised both cattle and sheep; corn, cotton, and wheat were the principal crops. Most people in Castro County live in its towns and communities, including Nazareth (2000 population, 356), Hart (1,198), Summerfield (60), Easter (30), Flagg (30), and Sunnyside (80). Dimmitt, the county's largest town and seat of government, had a population in 2000 of 4,375, and hosts Castro County's yearly Harvest Days festival.
Texas Birth Certificates, 1903-10, 1926-29