Sherman County Texas map
36.28° N · 101.90° W · County seat: Stratford · 923 sq mi
Sherman County sits in the top row of the Panhandle, its northern line the 36°30′ parallel that separates Texas from the Oklahoma Panhandle. It is a plain 30 miles square with 2,782 people on it, two towns, and one of the odder addresses in the state: half of Texhoma is in Sherman County, Texas, and the other half is in Texas County, Oklahoma.
The straight top of the frame is the Oklahoma state line. Stratford sits at the crossing of US-54 and US-287 in the middle of the county.
Where Sherman County is
Two of Sherman's seven neighbours are in Oklahoma: Texas County to the north and Cimarron County to the northwest, both in the Oklahoma Panhandle. On the Texas side it borders Hansford east, Hutchinson southeast, Moore south, Hartley southwest and Dallam west.
Amarillo is about 73 miles south, an hour and a half by US-287 through Dumas, and it is the nearest city of any size in any direction — Guymon, Oklahoma and Dalhart are closer but smaller. Lubbock is 187 miles south.
The county honours Sidney Sherman, a colonel at San Jacinto in the Texas Revolution. The city of Sherman is named for the same man, but it is in Grayson County on the Red River, roughly 430 miles southeast — the two places have nothing in common but the name.
Towns
| Place | Type | Population (2020) |
|---|---|---|
| Stratford | City · county seat | 1,939 |
| Texhoma | City | 260 |
The 260 figure covers only the Texas half of Texhoma. The Oklahoma half is a separate incorporated town with its own government.
Roads
- US-287 – the through route, entering from Dumas in Moore County and running north through Stratford and across the state line toward Boise City, Colorado and Denver. This is the road most Amarillo traffic uses to leave the state northbound.
- US-54 – the diagonal, running northeast from Dalhart in Dallam County through Stratford and on to Guymon and Liberal, Kansas, following the old Rock Island railroad alignment.
- SH-15 – the east–west county road, crossing US-287 at Stratford and continuing toward Spearman in Hansford County.
Stratford's location where US-54 and US-287 cross is the reason it kept the county seat and the reason it has motels: it is a natural overnight stop for traffic between the southern plains and Colorado.
The state line, and the country around it
Texhoma grew up on the railroad exactly on the boundary, and the name is simply the two states run together. Because the boundary splits the town, each half has its own municipal government, its own school district and its own state's taxes, licence plates and election law, while the streets run straight through. Texas County, Oklahoma, on the far side, is heavy feedyard and hog country, so cattle, corn and workers move across the line all day.
Sherman County's own land is level to gently rolling, drained only by Coldwater Creek, which runs southeast past Stratford toward the Canadian River and carries water mostly after storms. Wheat, corn, sorghum and cattle are the economy; the corn goes into feedyards rather than onto a train, and the pivots that grow it draw on the Ogallala Aquifer, which is thinner and dropping faster here than in the counties to the south.
This is Dust Bowl ground. The county lies close to the centre of the area worst hit in the 1930s, when ploughed-up shortgrass sod blew out and the Black Sunday storm of 14 April 1935 rolled south out of the Oklahoma Panhandle. The shelterbelts and terraces you can pick out from the road are a direct result.