Somervell: Story of a Texas County

Somervell County is a rugged, hilly area greened by oaks and cedars and adorned by crystaline streams. It is not a new land, and the ancient dinosaur and brontosaurus both left their tracks upon its surface long before present-day man appeared. The Indians built their campfires along the streams, and later Spanish explorers touched the area. But it was the Anglo-Americans who came to stay.

Indian depredations postponed the advance of civilization until the early 1870s when frontiersmen established Somervell County and chose Glen Rose as the county seat.

Somervell ranchers drove cattle to Kansas and other markets as their farming neighbors tried to grow cotton and corn on land nature intended for pasture. Glen Rose saw its courthouse burn and a cyclone destroy the city's buildings. Yet the people of the town rallied and made Glen Rose both a vacation spot and a spa where the abundant sulphur springs could be used to promote health.

Still Somervell, rich in beauty, remained poor in farm wealth until men of adventure turned to agriculture and began to sell bootleg whisky to a nation made thirsty by prohibition. Law enforcement officers discovered stills hidden among the cedars and ended the profitable bootlegging.

The twentieth century brought other changes. Somervell saw its youth go to four wars, its economy survive the Great Depression, and its farming decline as ranching expanded. Good highways ultimately resulted in the disappearance of small villages--Rainbow, George's Creek, Nemo and Glass.

Today, Somervell County benefits from a great nuclear powered electric generating plant.