York.
Eastland County Texas
Born out of the prairie in the early 1870’s, Eastland struggled with Indians and the elements to carve a permanent niche in the valleys of the Leon River.
Joseph C. Nance and Nancy Trimble Sparks Nance moved their family to Eastland County from Arkansas in about 1879. They were enumerated on the 1880 Census there with their four children including Tallulah Harriet Nance who was 14 years old. Tallulah Harriet later married Robert Donnell Sparks. Also living in the household was a teacher, Mr. H. A. Newberry.
Robert Don Sparks, son of Tallulah Harriet Nance and Robert Donnell Sparks Sr. was born in September of 1886 in Eastland county, probably at the home of his grandparents.
Tillman Sparks, grandson of Absolom (1771), and
great-grandson of Mathew and Sarah Thompson Sparks, was living in Eastland
County and enumerated there in 1880 with his wife Elcy and children. A
Confederate soldier, he had returned there after being released from a Prisoner
of War camp in New
York.
Two daughters of Martin Sparks were living in Eastland County with other families and working as school teachers in 1880.
Due in part to its isolation from other settled areas and frequent trouble from raiding Indians, the county remained sparsely settled until the 1870s. Due to the dangers of settlement in the area, the county's population actually declined during the 1860s; in 1870 the census found only seventy-seven people living in Eastland County. When Indian raids ceased to present a problem in the early 1870s, however, settlers moved into the area in increasingly larger numbers. In early 1874 the Flannagan's Ranch headquarters, also called Merriman, was designated as the county seat. An election was held in 1875, and the new town of Eastland was designated the county seat. On the 1880 Census, most of the occupations are listed as 'Farmer' with a considerable number of Rail Road employees listed as well. Joseph C. Nance listed his occupation as farmer. This is in contrast to nearby Callahan and Brown counties where 'Stock Raising' and 'Ranching' are the primary occupations. Most all of the Sparks families listed "Stock Raiser" as their occupation. By 1880 there were 549 farms in Eastland county encompassing about 100,800 acres of land. In 1870, the agricultural census reported only sixteen cattle in the county; by 1880 there were 23,423 counted in the area. And the county's rising population reflected the area's economic development: by 1880, 4,855 people were living in Eastland County.
