Concho County Texas map
31.32° N · 99.86° W · County seat: Paint Rock · 994 sq mi
A limestone bluff on the north bank of the Concho River just outside Paint Rock carries hundreds of Native American paintings, the largest such group in this part of Texas and the reason the town has its name. The county seat has 239 residents; Eden, 20 miles southwest, has nearly nine times as many.
Paint Rock sits on US-83 where the road crosses the Concho River in the north of the county. Eden is southwest at the US-83 and US-87 junction.
Where Concho County is
The county sits on the northeastern edge of the Edwards Plateau, east of San Angelo, in the transition to the rolling country of central Texas. San Angelo is 35 miles west and is the nearest city; Abilene is 78 miles north, Fredericksburg 93 miles southeast and Kerrville 98 miles southeast.
Six counties border it: Runnels north, Coleman northeast, McCulloch east, Menard south, Schleicher southwest and Tom Green west.
Concho County was marked off from the Bexar District in 1858 and organized in 1879. Both the county and the river take their name from the Spanish word for shell, after the freshwater mussels in the river — the same mussels that produce Concho pearls, purple-pink pearls found nowhere else and long collected along this stretch of water. The Concho River crosses the county from west to east and joins the Colorado near the eastern county line.
The Paint Rock pictographs
For about half a mile along a limestone escarpment above the Concho, hundreds of painted figures cover the rock: handprints, animals, human figures, shields and later images that appear to record contact with Spanish missions and with settlers. The paintings are the work of successive peoples over a very long span, and they are the single most important archaeological site in the Concho Valley.
The bluff is on private ranch land immediately outside the town of Paint Rock. It is not a public park; the landowners have shown it to visitors by appointment for generations, which is the only way to see it. Do not attempt to reach the site from the highway.
Towns
| Place | Type | Population (2020) |
|---|---|---|
| Eden | City | 2,105 |
| Paint Rock (county seat) | Town | 239 |
Eden is the larger place by a wide margin and sits at the crossing of two U.S. highways, which is what built it. Its population also reflects a federal detention facility operated under contract on the edge of town, one of the county's biggest employers. Paint Rock kept the courthouse because it was the river crossing when the county organized in 1879, and it remains one of the smallest county seats in Texas.
Roads
- US-83 – north–south the length of the county, through Paint Rock and Eden; north to Ballinger, south to Menard.
- US-87 – northwest–southeast through Eden, connecting San Angelo with Brady and the Hill Country.
- SH-206 – the local link north out of the Eden area toward Coleman County.
- SH-153 – a state route crossing the north of the county toward Runnels County.
There is no interstate. Traffic bound for I-10 uses US-83 south through Menard County; traffic for I-20 uses US-83 north.
Farms and ranches
The county straddles two kinds of country. The northern half, in the river bottoms and the darker soils, grows cotton, wheat, hay and grain sorghum. The southern half runs to shallow limestone range carrying sheep, goats and cattle, the standard Edwards Plateau mix that made the Concho Valley the wool and mohair centre of the United States for much of the 20th century. Population peaked before the Second World War and has settled at around 3,300.