Taylor County waited 20 years for a government of its own

For 20 years, Taylor County existed mostly on paper. The Texas legislature created it in 1858 from land once assigned to Bexar and Travis counties. With few settlers and no local government, other counties handled its court and public business. Eastland County took over those duties in 1873. Taylor County finally organized in 1878 and made Buffalo Gap its county seat. Two years later, the census counted 917 residents.

The name honors brothers Edward, James, and George Taylor, whom Texas records list as Alamo defenders. Before joining the revolutionary army, the Tennessee brothers had picked cotton near Liberty. Their names reached far beyond that farm: a county created two decades later would carry them on the map.

The Buffalo Gap seat did not last long. The Texas and Pacific Railway crossed the northern part of the county in 1881 and passed Buffalo Gap by. Abilene grew beside the tracks as a shipping town. In an October 1883 election, voters moved the county seat to Abilene, shifting the center of county life from the old gap to the new railroad town.