Kimble County Texas map
30.48° N · 99.75° W · County seat: Junction · 1,251 sq mi
Junction is named for what happens there: the North Llano and the South Llano meet at the town and become the Llano River. Both valleys are lined with pecan bottoms, and the springs feeding the South Llano keep it running clear when most Hill Country streams are dry.
Junction sits in the middle of the county where the two river forks join. I-10 follows the North Llano valley in from the west and leaves east toward Segovia.
Where Kimble County is
The county occupies the western edge of the Texas Hill Country, on the Edwards Plateau where the tableland begins to break into river canyons. Kerrville is 47 miles southeast, Fredericksburg 54 miles southeast, San Angelo 79 miles northwest and San Antonio 105 miles southeast. Junction is the last town on I-10 with services before the long run west toward Sonora and Ozona.
Seven counties border it: Menard north, Mason northeast, Gillespie east, Kerr southeast, Edwards southwest, Sutton west and Schleicher northwest.
The legislature created Kimble County from the Bexar District in 1858 and named it for George C. Kimbell, a lieutenant in the Gonzales company who died at the Alamo; the bill misspelled his name and the county has carried the misspelling ever since. Organization waited until 1876. The highest natural point in the Hill Country, 2,460 feet, is in this county.
Two rivers and the pecan bottoms
The North Llano rises in Sutton County and runs east down a broad valley that I-10 uses. The South Llano rises from a set of large springs on the plateau to the southwest and runs north to Junction; it is spring-fed rather than runoff-fed, which is why it holds water and a steady temperature through the summer. Below the junction the combined Llano runs east through Mason and Llano counties to the Colorado.
The bottomland along both forks carries native pecan groves and planted orchards. Pecans have been a cash crop here since the 19th century, and Junction has long billed itself around the harvest; the trees also give the valleys their character, a dense green ribbon through otherwise thin, brushy limestone range.
South Llano River State Park sits on the river just south of Junction off US-377, with river frontage for swimming and tubing, a bottomland pecan grove that is one of the largest wild turkey roosts in the region, and a block of upland plateau above it laced with hiking trails. Access to the roost area is restricted in winter while the birds are using it.
Towns
| Place | Type | Population (2020) |
|---|---|---|
| Junction (county seat) | City | 2,438 |
Junction is the only incorporated place; it holds well over half the county's 4,286 residents. London, Telegraph, Roosevelt and Segovia are unincorporated communities.
Roads
- I-10 – the main line, entering from Sutton County along the North Llano, past Junction, and east toward Segovia and Kerrville.
- US-83 – north–south, up to Menard and down the South Llano country toward Leakey and Uvalde. It runs with I-10 through Junction.
- US-290 – reaches its western end at I-10 near Segovia in the east of the county; from there it runs east to Fredericksburg, Johnson City and Austin.
- US-377 – southwest from Junction toward Rocksprings and Del Rio, northeast toward Mason and Brady.
Ranger country
Kimble County in the 1870s had a reputation as a refuge for cattle and horse thieves working out of the brushy canyon country, where a rider could disappear between draws. In 1877 a Texas Ranger force under Major John B. Jones swept the county and arrested a large number of men in a single operation, an episode remembered locally as the Kimble County roundup. It marked the point at which the county passed from frontier to ordinary settlement.
Texas Tech University runs a campus and field station at Junction on the South Llano, used for summer courses and for river and rangeland research — an unusual thing to find in a county of four thousand people.