**List of available counties updated 11-15-10**
I have recently, with the help of my assistant (and soon-to-be law student) Christina Heddesheimer, taken on the monumental task of compiling the local stock laws for all 254 Texas counties.
Oh, and when I say with the "help" of Christina, I mean that Christina is doing all of heavy lifting and all of the county-by-county research. Her work has been invaluable.
We are so grateful to the many people who have taken time to assist us in this research project in over 100 Texas counties so far. Thank you, Texas county officials!
This project takes extraordinary persistence, hours and hours of time, and lots of patience. And money. It’s probably for these reasons that no other lawyer or organization has ever, in the history of the State of Texas, compiled all the stock laws in one place. Until now….
So, why is this project so monumental, you ask? As discussed in an earlier post, the default rule in Texas is that livestock may roam freely in Texas ("open range") . The only state-wide exception is a prohibition of open range grazing/roaming on interstate and state highway right-of-ways. Pursuant to the Texas Agriculture Code and its predecessors, counties have the right to hold one or more elections to restrict the free roaming of livestock. The individual elections can include one or more species (such as cattle, horses, mules, hogs, sheep and goats), and the elections can be held for the whole county or part(s) of each county.
These laws are very difficult to find as they are only located in the commissioner’s court minutes of each individual county. The dates these laws were enacted range from the 1800s to now.
The stock laws are important because they often determine who is liable when, for example, a motorist collides with a horse on a farm-to-market road, or a horse gets loose and destroys someone else’s property.
So far, we have obtained the stock law status of 234 Texas counties, and we continue to receive more updates daily. We will periodically post updates as we gather more information from more counties. For each of the following counties, we currently either have a copy of the stock law, or we have a confirmation that the county is open range:
1. Anderson
2. Andrews
3. Angelina
4. Aransas
5. Archer
6. Armstrong
7. Atascosa
8. Austin
9. Bailey
10. Bandera
11. Bastrop
12. Baylor
13. Bee
14. Bell
15. Bexar
16. Blanco
17. Borden
18. Bosque
19. Bowie
20. Brazoria
21. Brewster
22. Briscoe
23. Brown
24. Burleson
25. Burnet
26. Caldwell
27. Calhoun
28. Callahan
29. Cameron
30. Camp
31. Carson
32. Castro
33. Cherokee
34. Childress
35. Clay
36. Cochran
37. Coke
38. Coleman
39. Collin
40. Collingsworth
41. Colorado
42. Comal
43. Comanche
44. Concho
45. Cooke
46. Coryell
47. Cottle
48. Crockett
49. Dallam
50. Dallas
51. Dawson
52. Deaf Smith
53. Delta
54. Denton
55. DeWitt
56. Dickens
57. Dimmit
58. Duval
59. Eastland
60. Ector
61. Edwards
62. Ellis
63. Erath
64. Fannin
65. Fayette
66. Fisher
67. Floyd
68. Foard
69. Fort Bend
70. Franklin
71. Freestone
72. Frio
73. Galveston
74. Gaines
75. Garza
76. Gillespie
77. Glasscock
78. Gonzales
79. Gray
80. Grayson
81. Gregg
82. Grimes
83. Guadalupe
84. Hale
85. Hall
86. Hamilton
87. Hansford
88. Hardeman
89. Hardin
90. Harris
91. Harrison
92. Hartley
93. Haskell
94. Hays
95. Hemphill
96. Henderson
97. Hill
98. Hockley
99. Hood
100.Hopkins
101.Houston
102.Howard
103.Hunt
104.Hutchinson
105.Irion
106.Jack
107.Jackson
108.Jasper
109.Jeff Davis
110.Jefferson
111.Jim Hogg
112.Jim Wells
113.Johnson
114.Jones
115.Kaufman
116.Karnes
117.Kendall
118.Kenedy
119.Kent
120.Kerr
121.Kimble
122.King
123.Kinney
124.Kleberg
125.Lamar
126.Lamb
127.Lampasas
128.La Salle
129.Lavaca
130.Lee
131.Leon
132.Liberty
133.Limestone
134.Lipscomb
135.Live Oak
136.Llano
137.Loving
138.Lubbock
139.Lynn
140.Madison
141.Marion
142.Martin
143.Mason
144.Matagorda
145.Maverick
146.McCulloch
147.McLennan
148.McMullen
149.Medina
150.Menard
151.Midland
152.Milam
153.Mills
154.Mitchell
155.Montague
156.Montgomery
157.Moore
158.Morris
159.Nacogdoches
160.Navarro
161.Newton
162.Nolan
163.Nueces
164.Ochiltree
165.Oldham
166.Orange
167.Palo Pinto
168.Panola
169.Parker
170.Parmer
171.Pecos
172.Polk
173.Potter
174.Presidio
175.Rains
176.Randall
177.Reagan
178.Real
179.Red River
180.Reeves
181.Refugio
182.Roberts
183.Robertson
184.Rockwall
185.Runnels
186.Rusk
187.Sabine
188.San Jacinto
189.San Patricio
190.San Saba
191.Schleicher
192.Scurry
193.Shackelford
194.Shelby
195.Sherman
196.Smith
197.Somervell
198.Stephens
199.Sterling
200.Stonewall
201.Sutton
202.Swisher
203.Tarrant
204.Taylor
205.Terrell
206.Terry
207.Throckmorton
208.Tom Green
209.Travis
210.Trinity
211.Tyler
212.Upshur
213.Upton
214.Uvalde
215.Val Verde
216.Van Zandt
217.Victoria
218.Waller
219.Walker
220.Ward
221.Washington
222.Wharton
223.Wheeler
224.Wichita
225.Wilbarger
226.Willacy
227.Williamson
228.Wilson
229.Winkler
230.Wise
231.Wood
232.Yoakum
233.Young
234.Zavala
If you would like a copy of one or more stock laws in our compilation, please call 979-229-9718 or send an email to Rick Rowe. Please do not contact Alison Rowe or Kelly Hart & Hallman LLP with respect to stock law copies, as these requests are not being processed through our office. We charge a fee for copies due to the time-intensive and costly nature of this research project.