McMullen County Texas map
28.39° N · 98.58° W · County seat: Tilden · 1,157 sq mi
McMullen County had 600 residents in the 2020 census spread over 1,157 square miles — roughly one person for every two square miles, and one of the four emptiest counties in Texas. It has no incorporated city at all: Tilden, the seat, is an unincorporated settlement on the Nueces River.
Tilden sits at the crossing of SH-16 and SH-72. The water in the southeast is the upper end of Choke Canyon Reservoir on the Frio River.
Where McMullen County is
Atascosa County lies north, Live Oak east, Duval south, Webb southwest and La Salle west. San Antonio is about 72 miles north, Corpus Christi 83 miles southeast and Laredo 81 miles southwest — the county sits in the middle of the triangle those three cities make, which is much of the reason it stayed empty.
It was created in 1858 from parts of Bexar, Atascosa and Live Oak counties and organized in 1877. The name honours John McMullen, the Irish-born empresario who with James McGloin brought Irish colonists to the San Patricio grant in the 1820s.
Settlements
Nothing in the county is incorporated, so the census reports no city populations here at all.
| Community | Where it is |
|---|---|
| Tilden | County seat, on the Nueces River at SH-16 and SH-72 |
| Calliham | SH-72 on the north shore of Choke Canyon Reservoir |
| Whitsett | Northeast corner near I-37 and the Live Oak County line |
| Fowlerton | Northwest, on SH-97 near the La Salle line |
Tilden was known as Dog Town in its rough early years and took its present name in 1877, after Samuel J. Tilden. Its courthouse was designed by W. C. Stephenson, the architect responsible for the Bee County courthouse and much of Beeville.
Roads
- SH-16 – the main north–south route: north to Jourdanton, Poteet and San Antonio; south to Freer and on toward Zapata.
- SH-72 – east from Tilden past Calliham to Three Rivers and I-37; west toward Tilden's ranch country and La Salle County.
- US-59 – clips the southeast corner between Freer and George West.
- SH-97 – across the northwest through Fowlerton.
- FM 99, FM 624, FM 791 and FM 1582 – the ranch roads that reach the rest of the county.
I-37 does not enter McMullen County, though it runs close to the northeastern corner near Whitsett.
Choke Canyon Reservoir
Choke Canyon Dam impounds the Frio River just over the line in Live Oak County, and most of the lake it makes lies in McMullen County. The reservoir was built as a water supply for Corpus Christi and the Coastal Bend, and it is the reason a county of 600 people gets visitors at all.
Choke Canyon State Park's Calliham Unit is on the McMullen County shore off SH-72, with camping, a swimming lake, boat ramps and a birding list that runs long — this is one of the more reliable places in Texas to see alligators and, in winter, large numbers of waterfowl. The park sits in thorn-scrub habitat, and javelina and white-tailed deer are common. Levels in the reservoir drop hard in drought years, which periodically closes ramps.
Rivers and ranches
Two rivers cross the county. The Nueces comes in from the northwest past Tilden and continues southeast; the Frio runs parallel to the north of it before being caught behind Choke Canyon Dam. Between and beyond them is mesquite and prickly pear rangeland held in large ranches, some of them measured in tens of thousands of acres. Cattle and paid hunting leases are the traditional income; oil and gas from the Eagle Ford shale, which underlies the northern part of the county, added drilling and pipeline work after 2010 and gave the tiny tax base a windfall out of all proportion to the population.