Clay County Texas map
33.79° N · 98.21° W · County seat: Henrietta · 1,117 sq mi · Central Time
Clay County is 1,117 square miles of rolling prairie and mesquite between Wichita Falls and the Cross Timbers, with the Red River as its northern boundary and Oklahoma on the far bank. Just over 10,000 people live in it, most of them in Henrietta at the junction of US-82 and US-287.
Henrietta is near the western end of the county on US-287. The Red River runs along the top; Lake Arrowhead lies just over the line in the southwest.
Where Clay County is
The county was created in 1857 from Cooke County and organized in 1860, and it takes its name from Henry Clay, the Kentucky senator and secretary of state. Frontier raids emptied it during the Civil War and it had to be reorganized in the early 1870s.
The Red River forms the whole northern boundary, putting Jefferson County, Oklahoma directly across the water and Cotton County, Oklahoma across the northwest corner. In Texas the neighbours are Montague on the east, Jack on the south, Archer on the west and Wichita on the northwest. Wichita Falls, the nearest city of any size, is about 18 miles west of the county line on US-287; Fort Worth is roughly 90 miles southeast.
Towns
| Place | Type | 2020 population |
|---|---|---|
| Henrietta | City · county seat | 3,096 |
| Petrolia | City | 512 |
| Dean | City | 493 |
| Byers | City | 450 |
| Bellevue | City | 283 |
| Jolly | City | 171 |
| Windthorst (part) | Town | 13 |
Windthorst lies mostly in Archer County, and a single resident of the city of Wichita Falls is counted on the Clay County side of the line.
Roads
- US-287 – the main route, running northwest–southeast through Henrietta between Wichita Falls and Bowie, and on to Fort Worth.
- US-82 – joins US-287 at Henrietta from the east, coming in from Nocona and Gainesville.
- SH-79 – north from Henrietta through Byers to the Red River bridge into Oklahoma, and south toward Archer City.
- SH-148 – northwest from Henrietta to Petrolia and the river.
- SH-59 – south from US-287 near Bellevue toward Jacksboro.
Lake Arrowhead and the Little Wichita
The Little Wichita River rises in Archer County and crosses the southwest corner of Clay County, where it was dammed to form Lake Arrowhead — the water supply for Wichita Falls. The reservoir covers roughly 14,390 acres and its shoreline runs about 106 miles, deeply indented into a set of long fingers rather than a single open bay. Lake Arrowhead State Park occupies a 524-acre peninsula on the Clay County shore, with camping, boat ramps, fishing piers, a swimming area and horseback trails. The oil derricks standing in the shallow water are left over from the field that was producing before the lake was filled.
That oil is also why Petrolia has its name. Gas and then oil were found in the shallow sands around the town early in the twentieth century, and a pipeline from the field was among the first in the state to carry gas to a city — Fort Worth and Dallas both burned Petrolia gas. Production tailed off long ago, but pumpjacks are still scattered across the northern half of the county between the wheat fields and the cattle.