Kinney County, Texas

In the early 1870s a number of Black Seminole Indians living along the border were organized into a company of scouts and brought to Fort Clark. Others joined them, and by the mid-1870s they numbered some 400 or 500. For the next quarter century they lived on a reservation along Las Moras Creek. In 1914 the Black Seminoles were removed from the Fort Clark reservation, but some of their descendants still live in the county. By 1874 the population was large enough for the county to be formally organized, and by 1875 the first county government was in place. In 1876 Brackettville was designated county seat after the final boundaries of the county were set by the legislature. The 1870s brought numerous signs that the county was slowly losing its frontier character. The first school, started by Margaret Martin Ballantyne, began operating around 1870, and a post office was opened in 1873. The first church, St. Mary Magalene's, was organized in 1875, and the Gilead Church, a Black Seminole church, was established in the late 1870s. [Texas State Historical Association, www.tshaonline.org]