Hudspeth County Texas map
31.45° N · 105.38° W · County seat: Sierra Blanca · 4,571 sq mi land · Mountain Time
Hudspeth County is one of only two Texas counties that keep Mountain Time, the other being El Paso next door. It runs from the New Mexico line south to the Rio Grande across 4,571 square miles of desert basins and fault-block ranges — the third largest county in Texas by land area, with 3,202 people in it.
Hudspeth County east of El Paso. I-10 crosses the south end through Fort Hancock and Sierra Blanca; the Sierra Diablo and Eagle Mountains rise north and east of the interstate.
Where Hudspeth County is
It is the county immediately east of El Paso County, with downtown El Paso 69 miles northwest of the county's centre. Otero County, New Mexico, forms the whole northern boundary along the 32nd parallel. Culberson is east, and on the south the county meets Jeff Davis and Presidio. The southwestern edge is the Rio Grande, which is also the international boundary with Chihuahua.
The county was split off from El Paso County in 1917 and named for Claude Benton Hudspeth, a rancher, newspaper publisher and congressman who represented the district from 1919 to 1931. Making it separate created an unusually shaped county: about 90 miles from the New Mexico line to the river, and still only two people per four square miles.
Communities
| Place | Type | 2020 population |
|---|---|---|
| Sierra Blanca | County seat, unincorporated | — |
| Fort Hancock | Unincorporated, largest community | — |
| Dell City | City — only incorporated place | 246 |
| County total | 3,202 |
Dell City is the county's only incorporated municipality; Sierra Blanca and Fort Hancock are unincorporated and are governed directly by the county.
I-10 and the other roads
- Interstate 10 enters from El Paso County near McNary, passes Fort Hancock and Sierra Blanca and continues to Van Horn in Culberson County. The Border Patrol checkpoint on the eastbound side at Sierra Blanca stops every vehicle heading inland.
- State Highway 20 is the old highway alignment beside the interstate, serving Fort Hancock, Acala and Esperanza along the river valley.
- US-62/180 crosses the far north of the county, running northeast from El Paso past Salt Flat toward the Guadalupe Mountains and Carlsbad.
- Ranch roads connect Dell City to US-62/180; there is no paved through route between the north and south halves of the county inside its own boundaries.
Mountains, the river and the farms at Dell City
The Sierra Diablo rises north of I-10 and the Eagle Mountains east of Sierra Blanca, both of them fault-block ranges standing above closed desert basins — the same basin-and-range country that continues into New Mexico. The far northeastern corner of the county takes in part of Guadalupe Mountains National Park. West of the ranges lies the Salt Basin, a flat of white gypsum and salt with no outlet to the sea.
Dell City, in the north near the salt flats, exists because of water: wells into the limestone aquifer under the Guadalupe front support centre-pivot circles of alfalfa and cotton in a place that gets under a foot of rain a year. From the air the green circles are the only regular pattern for 50 miles.
At Sierra Blanca the Texas and Pacific met the Southern Pacific in 1881, joining the two lines into a through route to the Pacific coast; the Union Pacific still runs the track beside I-10. Downriver at Fort Hancock a small international bridge crosses to El Porvenir, Chihuahua — the only road crossing on the county's stretch of the border.