Haskell County Texas map
33.18° N · 99.73° W · County seat: Haskell · 910 sq mi
Haskell County carries the name of a man who never saw it: Charles Ready Haskell, a soldier of the Texas Revolution shot in the Goliad massacre in 1836. The county was marked out in 1858 from land assigned to Fannin and Milam counties and organised in 1885, and it now holds five small towns and part of a sixth.
Haskell County on the Rolling Plains north of Abilene. US-277 and US-380 cross at the town of Haskell; Lake Stamford is in the southeast corner.
Locating Haskell County
Abilene is 50 miles south, the closest city of any size; Wichita Falls is 88 miles northeast and Lubbock 126 miles northwest. Seven counties touch it. Knox is north, Baylor at the northeast corner, Throckmorton east, Shackelford at the southeast corner, Jones south, Stonewall west and King at the northwest corner.
The land is flat to gently rolling, cut by the Brazos River along the northern boundary and by Paint Creek and the Double Mountain Fork drainage in the south. Cotton and wheat are the field crops; the county has produced oil since the 1920s.
Towns and populations
| Place | Type | 2020 population |
|---|---|---|
| Haskell (county seat) | City | 3,082 |
| Rule | Town | 560 |
| Rochester | Town | 250 |
| Weinert | City | 172 |
| O'Brien | City | 90 |
| Stamford (part) | City | 35 |
Stamford straddles the county line; all but 35 of its people live in Jones County. The 2024 estimate puts the whole county at 5,435, one of the few counties in this corner of Texas not losing population.
Four numbered routes
- US-277 runs southwest to northeast through the town of Haskell, linking Abilene with Wichita Falls. It is the busiest road in the county.
- US-380 crosses east–west, entering from Throckmorton County and leaving toward Aspermont in Stonewall County.
- State Highway 6 comes down from Knox County through Rule and continues southeast.
- State Highway 222 is the short east–west connector across the north of the county through Weinert and O'Brien.
US-277 and US-380 meet at Haskell, and the town's square sits a few blocks from the junction. There is no interstate; the nearest is I-20 at Abilene, about 55 road miles south on US-277.
Lake Stamford
Lake Stamford sits in the southeast of the county on Paint Creek, a tributary of the Clear Fork of the Brazos. The reservoir was built by the city of Stamford, which lies mostly across the line in Jones County, and it remains that city's water supply. It also serves as the county's fishing and boating water, with a city-run park, boat ramps and camping on the shore.
Water is the recurring subject in a county with no interstate and no big employer. Farms here run on the Seymour aquifer and on rain that averages well under 30 inches a year, which is why the county's flat cotton land gives way to grazing on the rougher ground near the Brazos.