Armstrong County, Texas: History
=== Native Americans ===
Paleo-Indians were the first inhabitants as far back as 10,000 BC. Apachean cultures roamed the county until Comanche dominated around 1700. The Comanches were defeated by the United States Army in the Red River War of 1874. Later tribes include Kiowa and Cheyenne.
In 1876, the Texas Legislature established Armstrong County from portions of Bexar County, and it organized in 1890 with Claude as the county seat.
In 1876, Charles Goodnight brought a herd of 1,600 cattle into the Palo Duro Canyon, and John George Adair and he established ranching in the county. The JA Ranch encompassed over a million acres (4,000 km2), spread over Armstrong and five adjoining counties. The county land use was primarily ranch-related, even after the trickling in of homesteaders, for the remainder of the 19th century.
In 1887, the JA Ranch split up, giving way to a terminus for the Fort Worth and Denver City Railway. The first town from the ranch was Goodnight. Landowner Robert E. Montgomery platted the town of Washburn, named after railroad executive D.W. Washburn.
The next year, railroad lines turned Washburn into a boom town. In the same year, Armstrong City was renamed Claude in honor of railroad engineer Claude Ayers. In 1890, the two towns competed for the county seat, with Claude winning.
At the beginning of the 20th century, ranching began to share the land with cotton and wheat crops, although ranching remained the leading industry. The Great Depression had a severe effect on the county's economy, and recovery took years. Ranches still occupied about 68% of the land in the county in 2005.
Many scenes of the 1963 Paul Newman film Hud were filmed at Goodnight and Claude.