How Titus County Came to Be

The First Legislature of the State of Texas created Titus County in 1846. The county was named for Andrew Jackson Titus, an early settler in nearby Red River County. Mount Pleasant was designated as the county seat from the start. The county originally covered more territory; Franklin and Morris counties were carved out of it later, in 1875.

The earliest documented Anglo settler arrived around 1835. The county grew as a farming community, with cotton and corn as the main crops before the Civil War. Railroads arrived in the 1870s and 1880s, which helped Mount Pleasant grow into a regional trade center. An oil field was discovered in 1936 near the community of Talco, which brought another wave of economic activity.