Nolan County Texas map
32.31° N · 100.42° W · County seat: Sweetwater · 914 sq mi
More wind turbines stand in and around Nolan County than almost anywhere else in the United States. A finger of the Edwards Plateau runs through the middle of the county, rising a few hundred feet above the Rolling Plains on either side, and that ridge — steady wind, cheap land, transmission lines already in place — turned Sweetwater into a wind-power town.
Nolan County on I-20 between Abilene and Big Spring. Sweetwater sits where I-20, US-84 and State Highway 70 meet; Roscoe is 15 miles west on the interstate.
Where Nolan County is
Sweetwater is 41 miles west of Abilene and 62 miles east of Big Spring on I-20, with San Angelo 59 miles south. Seven counties border it: Fisher north, Jones at the northeast corner, Taylor east, Runnels at the southeast corner, Coke south, Mitchell west and Scurry at the northwest corner.
The county was created in 1876 from the Bexar District and organised in 1881, the year the Texas and Pacific railroad arrived. It is named for Philip Nolan, a mustang trader killed by Spanish troops in 1801 during one of his expeditions into Texas. Nolan County on its own makes up the Sweetwater micropolitan area.
Cities and towns
| Place | Type | 2020 population |
|---|---|---|
| Sweetwater (county seat) | City | 10,623 |
| Roscoe | City | 1,263 |
| Blackwell (part) | City | 255 |
| Rest of county | Unincorporated | 2,597 |
Blackwell straddles the line with Coke County; the figure above is the part inside Nolan County. Sweetwater holds about seven in ten of the county's residents; the 2024 estimate for the county is 14,182.
I-20 and the other routes
- Interstate 20 crosses the county east–west through Roscoe and Sweetwater, on the run between Abilene and Midland–Odessa.
- US-84 comes in from the northwest, joins I-20 through Sweetwater and splits southeast toward Coleman.
- State Highway 70 runs north–south through Sweetwater, toward Jayton in Kent County in one direction and Maryneal and the Coke County line in the other.
- State Highway 153 heads east from Sweetwater toward Trent and Taylor County.
Union Pacific's main line runs beside I-20 through both towns, and Sweetwater has a general-aviation airport just north of the interstate.
Wind, gypsum and rattlesnakes
Commercial wind development began here in the early 2000s and did not stop. Projects on the ridges south and west of Sweetwater — the Roscoe project among the largest of them, built out in stages to more than 600 turbines — put well over a thousand machines within sight of the interstate. Texas State Technical College in Sweetwater trains wind-turbine technicians for the industry, and the towers, blades and cranes moving on I-20 are part of the ordinary traffic.
The county was making things before the turbines. Gypsum beds around Sweetwater feed wallboard plants, and cement and lime operations work the limestone of the plateau. Oil from Pennsylvanian-age rock underlies much of the county and still produces.
Sweetwater is also known for the rattlesnake round-up its Jaycees have run each March since the 1950s, an event that fills the Nolan County Coliseum and draws visitors from outside the state. During the Second World War, Avenger Field north of town trained the Women Airforce Service Pilots; the airfield is now part of the technical college campus and the WASP are commemorated there.