McLennan County Was Created in 1850

The Texas legislature created McLennan County on January 22, 1850. It was named for Neil McLennan, an early settler who arrived in Texas in 1835 and moved to land on the Bosque River in 1845, settling in what would become McLennan County. Waco became the county seat. The county spans about 1,031 square miles, sitting on the boundary between the Grand Prairie and the Blackland Prairie.

Human occupation here goes back roughly 11,000 years. Wichita groups moved into the area around 1700. By the 1820s, a Waco Indian village of 500 to 600 people stood near the Brazos. That village was abandoned by the mid-1830s. European-American settlement began in earnest in the 1840s.