Taylor County Texas map
32.30° N · 99.89° W · County seat: Abilene · 920 sq mi
Taylor County holds 143,208 people, and five out of six of them live in Abilene. It is the anchor of the Big Country: I-20 across the north, Dyess Air Force Base on the southwest edge of the city, three private universities inside the city limits, and the limestone spine of the Callahan Divide running across the south of the county.
Abilene fills the north-centre of the county along I-20. Merkel and Trent lie west on the same road; Buffalo Gap, Tuscola and Lawn are strung south along US-83 through the Callahan Divide.
Where Taylor County is
The county sits on the line where the Rolling Plains give way to the edge of the Edwards Plateau, which is another way of saying it is where most Texans agree West Texas starts. Six counties border it: Jones to the north, Callahan east, Coleman southeast, Runnels south, Nolan west and Fisher northwest.
By road, Fort Worth is about 150 miles east on I-20 and Midland about 155 miles west on the same highway, which makes Abilene the natural halfway stop between the metroplex and the Permian Basin. San Angelo is 66 miles southwest in a straight line, Big Spring 93 miles west and Lubbock 144 miles northwest.
The Callahan Divide crosses the southern third of the county as a low limestone ridge separating water that runs north to the Brazos from water that runs south to the Colorado. The wooded hills around Buffalo Gap are its most visible stretch, and the gap itself — a natural notch through the ridge — is what the town is named for.
Founding and the county seat fight
The legislature marked Taylor County off in 1858 from land belonging to Bexar and Travis counties, but nobody organized it until 1878. It is named for Edward, George and James Taylor, three brothers who died at the Alamo. Buffalo Gap, on the old road through the divide, was the first county seat. When the Texas and Pacific Railway built across the north of the county in 1881 and the town of Abilene was laid out beside the track, the trade followed the rails, and an election in 1883 moved the courthouse to Abilene. Buffalo Gap kept its 19th-century buildings, which now stand as a historic village.
Cities and towns
| Place | Type | Population (2020) |
|---|---|---|
| Abilene (county seat) | City | 119,501 (part) |
| Merkel | Town | 2,499 |
| Tye | City | 1,180 |
| Tuscola | City | 850 |
| Buffalo Gap | Town | 543 |
| Lawn | Town | 312 |
| Trent | Town | 294 |
| Impact | Town | 21 |
Abilene straddles the county line: 119,501 of its 125,182 residents counted in 2020 live on the Taylor County side, the rest in Jones County.
Impact is the oddity. It is a town of twenty-odd people entirely surrounded by Abilene, incorporated in 1960 so that alcohol could be sold legally on a few acres next to a city that was then dry. The legal fight it set off went to the Texas Supreme Court, and for years the town's whole economy was liquor stores.
Roads
- I-20 – across the north of the county through Trent, Merkel, Tye and Abilene; east to Fort Worth, west to Big Spring and Midland.
- I-20 Business – the old highway through the main streets of Merkel, Tye and north Abilene.
- US-83 / US-84 – joined through Abilene as the Winters Freeway. US-84 leaves northwest for Snyder and Lubbock; US-83 runs south through Tuscola and Lawn toward Ballinger.
- US-277 – north from Abilene to Anson and Stamford, south past Dyess toward San Angelo and Del Rio.
- SH-36 – southeast out of Abilene toward Comanche.
- SH-351 – northeast from downtown Abilene to Albany in Shackelford County.
- Loop 322 – the eastern half-loop tying I-20 to the airport, the zoo and SH-36.
- SH-153 – a state route across the southern part of the county.
Dyess Air Force Base and the universities
Dyess occupies the southwest corner of Abilene off US-277, with a runway sized for heavy bombers. It is the home station for B-1B Lancer bombers and C-130J transports, and the airmen and families assigned there are a large fraction of the county's payroll. A line of retired aircraft stands along the base road as an outdoor display.
Three private universities operate in Abilene: Abilene Christian University on the north side, Hardin-Simmons University just north of downtown, and McMurry University south of it. Between the students and the base, Taylor County's population is far less tied to the oil price than Midland's or Odessa's, which is the main reason its population has climbed steadily rather than swinging with drilling.
Water, parks and wind
The county has no river worth the name and takes its water from reservoirs. Lake Fort Phantom Hill, the one Abilene residents mean when they say "the lake," sits on Elm Creek north of the city just over the line in Jones County, reached by FM 600; the stone chimneys of the 1851 army post at Fort Phantom Hill stand near its north end. Kirby Lake is on the south side of Abilene beside Loop 322. Abilene State Park, built by the Civilian Conservation Corps in the 1930s in the hills near Buffalo Gap, has Lake Abilene beside it on FM 89.
Along the western county line the ridges carry one of the densest concentrations of wind turbines in Texas. The Horse Hollow project spreads across Taylor and Nolan counties south of the interstate, and the turbines near Trent and Merkel are the first thing drivers see coming east on I-20.