Tom Green County Texas map
31.40° N · 100.46° W · County seat: San Angelo · 1,540 sq mi
Three forks of the Concho River meet at San Angelo, and the county grew up around that meeting point — first as a frontier fort, then as a wool market, then as the regional capital of the Concho Valley. With 120,003 residents, Tom Green is by far the largest county in this part of Texas, and it is a metropolitan county that no interstate highway reaches.
San Angelo sits in the northwest quadrant of the county where the North and South Concho meet. O.C. Fisher Reservoir is on the city's northwest edge, Twin Buttes to the southwest.
Where Tom Green County is
Eight counties touch Tom Green: Coke north, Runnels northeast, Concho east, Menard southeast, Schleicher south, Irion and Reagan west, and Sterling northwest.
Nothing large is close. Abilene and Big Spring are both 84 miles away, northeast and northwest; Midland is 104 miles northwest and Odessa 116. That isolation is the county's defining geographic fact — San Angelo serves a trade area larger than some states because there is no competing city inside two hours.
San Angelo and the county
| Place | Type | 2020 population |
|---|---|---|
| San Angelo | City (county seat) | 99,893 |
San Angelo is the only incorporated place in Tom Green County and holds roughly five sixths of its population. The remainder lives in unincorporated communities — Christoval on the South Concho, Wall and Veribest east of the city, Grape Creek and Carlsbad to the northwest — and on farms and ranches. Angelo State University, part of the Texas Tech University System, is on the south side of the city.
Roads, and no interstate
- US-87 – the northwest–southeast spine, running from Big Spring down through San Angelo toward Eden, Brady and eventually San Antonio.
- US-67 – enters from Ballinger in the northeast and leaves southwest past Mertzon toward Big Lake.
- US-277 – comes down from Bronte and Abilene and continues south to Eldorado, Sonora and Del Rio.
- Loop 306 – the freeway loop around the south and west of San Angelo that carries the through traffic.
- SH-208 – runs north from San Angelo toward Robert Lee and Snyder.
None of those is an interstate. To reach one, a driver leaves the county: I-20 is roughly 90 miles north via US-87 to Big Spring, and I-10 roughly 65 miles south via US-277 to Sonora. San Angelo is among the largest cities in Texas with no interstate highway at all, and freight moves in and out of the county on two-lane and four-lane US routes instead.
The three Concho forks
The Concho River is not one stream but three, and all three are in this county. The North Concho comes down from Sterling County. The Middle Concho and the South Concho rise on the plateau to the southwest and south; the South Concho is spring-fed and runs clear past Christoval. The North and South forks join in San Angelo, and the combined Concho River flows east through Concho County to the Colorado River.
The river gave the county its shape and its name. The Concho was one of the few dependable water sources between the Colorado and the Pecos, which is why the Army chose the confluence for a fort and why the town that followed stayed put. The freshwater mussels of the Concho once produced pearls that reached the European market, and the name still attaches to jewelry sold in San Angelo.
Two reservoirs and a lake
O.C. Fisher Reservoir sits on the North Concho at the northwest edge of San Angelo, a flood-control and water-supply lake built by the Corps of Engineers and renamed for the congressman who represented the district for over thirty years. It is shallow and drought-prone, and San Angelo State Park runs along its shore with hiking, riding and mountain-bike trails and a herd of official state longhorns.
Twin Buttes Reservoir, southwest of the city, impounds the Middle and South Concho behind a long earthen dam and is the larger of the two by design capacity. Below it, Lake Nasworthy is a small constant-level lake on the South Concho lined with houses and city parks — the everyday recreation water for San Angelo, as the two big reservoirs rise and fall too much to be reliable.
Fort Concho and Goodfellow
The Army established Fort Concho in 1867 at the junction of the North and South Concho to guard the roads west and the mail route. Its garrison over the next two decades included the Black cavalry and infantry regiments known as the Buffalo Soldiers, and the settlement that grew across the river to supply the fort became San Angelo. The post closed in 1889; many of its original limestone buildings survive on their original ground just south of downtown, and the site is a National Historic Landmark rather than a reconstruction.
The military never entirely left. Goodfellow Air Force Base, on the southeast side of San Angelo, began as a flying training field in 1941 and now houses the 17th Training Wing, which trains intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance specialists and firefighters for the Air Force, Army, Navy, Marine Corps and allied services. It is one of the county's largest employers, and students rotating through it are a permanent part of the city's population.