Stephen F. Austin State University

Titus County

Situated in northeastern Texas, Titus County is near the border separating Louisiana from Texas. The county seat is Mount Pleasant. Much like the rest of East Texas, Caddo Indians made the territory their home, until the arrival of Europeans in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. The Texas Legislature established Titus County in 1846 to honor Andrew Jackson Titus who was one of the first people to live in the area.
The population consisted of people from other southern states who introduced plantation-style farming. Titus County maintained an agricultural and rural profile, focusing on farming corn and cotton, made possible through large tracts of land suitable for agriculture.

Titus County joined the Confederacy in 1861 and witnessed a dramatic change in their economic structure afterward. The economy took a hit as the price of land declined rapidly due to speculation.

Over the next seven decades, the makeup of Titus County did not change significantly. In the 1870s, the county faced the prospect of a smaller overall size with the portioning of Franklin and Morris Counties. During this period, farmers used the available land to produce corn and cotton, both staple products before and after the Great Depression. The depression rendered long-term consequences in the county.

City/State/Federal Agency

Genealogy

Museum/Historic Site

Text: http://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/hct06 Handbook on Texas Online, Texas State Historical Association.