History
Postmasters & Post Offices, 1861-1930Maverick county was carved from Kinney County and was named for Samuel A. Maverick in 1856. The estimated population in 1860 was 726. Fort Duncan was occupied by Confederate troops during the Civil War, and near war's end was the only port of entry open for export of the Confederacy's cotton. So much cotton was passing through Eagle Pass by 1864 that cotton bales were lined from the river to the edge of town.
At the close of the war Gen. Joseph Orville Shelby bivouacked 500 Confederate soldiers of the Trans-Mississippi Army in the Eagle Pass area. On July 4, 1865, when crossing the Rio Grande on the way to Mexico to offer his troops' service to Maximillian, Shelby stopped in the middle of the river to bury the last Confederate flag to fly over his troops. Legend has it that the flag was wrapped around the plume of his hat, weighted down with a stone from the river bank and lowered into the river.
The abandonment of Fort Duncan during the Civil War enabled the Indian population to gain control of the region. Following the war, Black Seminole Scouts were organized at Fort Duncan to restore order and that is exactly what they did.
Telegraph communication reached Eagle Pass in November of 1875 with the completion of a military line between Fort Clark and Fort Duncan.
The historic Maverick County Courthouse was completed by pioneer builder William Hausser on April 4, 1885, at a cost of $20,489. The courthouse, site of the celebrated Dick Duncan murder trial in 1889, exhibits a modified Gothic Architecture with high windows and an overall Spanish fortress appearance, and was declared a Texas historic landmark in September of 1971.
Mining in Maverick County began about the time Fort Duncan's establishment in 1846. Soldiers at the fort mined the ore that was the Olmos Coal Formation immediately north of Eagle Pass. The Olmos Coal, Coke, and Oil Company at Olmos were the largest coal producers in Texas around the turn of the century.
In 1990, the population of Maverick County was 36,378. Eagle Pass with 20,651 was the largest town. The 2000 census had Eagle Pass at 22,413. In 2020, the census recorded almost 58,000 folks in our county with Hispanics making up almost 95%.