How Baylor County and Seymour came to be

Baylor County was created by the Texas Legislature on February 1, 1858, from Fannin County land. It was named for Henry W. Baylor, a surgeon and Texas Ranger who served in the Mexican War. The area was Comanche range before the U.S. Army's 1874 Red River Campaign ended armed resistance and opened the land to settlers. The county was formally organized in 1879, the same year Seymour became the county seat.

Seymour started as a small settlement called Oregon City, founded by pioneers from Oregon. When its post office opened in 1879, the name changed to Seymour — reportedly after a local cowboy named Seymour Munday. The town grew fast after the Wichita Valley Railway linked it to Wichita Falls in 1890. People moved in from nearby Round Timber, and new businesses followed.

For its first decades, Baylor County ran on cattle and then cotton. Oil was discovered in 1924, which helped diversify the local economy through the Great Depression years. The county today covers 845 square miles of rolling plains drained by the Salt Fork of the Brazos and the Big Wichita River. Agriculture — wheat, sorghum, cotton, and livestock — is still the backbone of the economy, along with Lake Kemp recreation and county services in Seymour.