Cherokee County, Texas Lawyers

Roberts & Roberts, an East Texas law firm with a history of helping injured people, specializes in personal injury cases, wrongful death and bodily injury involving auto accidents, motorcycle accidents and trucking accidents. Located in Tyler, Texas, our lawyers have successfully handled cases in Cherokee County, Texas and throughout East Texas. Contact us for a prompt reply.

CHEROKEE COUNTY. Cherokee County is located in central East Texas, bordered on the north by Smith County, on the east by Rusk and Nacogdoches counties, on the south by Angelina County, and on the west by Anderson and Houston counties. It was named for the Cherokee Indians, who lived in the area before being expelled in 1839. Rusk, the county seat, is 130 miles southeast of Dallas and 160 miles north of Houston. The center of the 1,049-square-mile county is located near Rusk at 31°48' north latitude and 95°10' west longitude.

The soil surface in Cherokee County consists of sandy and clay loams interspersed with alluvial bottoms. Redlands cover a fourth of the county. A forest of shortleaf and loblolly pine with mixed hardwoods covers 57.6 percent of the land. Timber, rich soils, abundant water, oil, natural gas, clays, and iron ore lead the list of natural resources. The hilly terrain ranges from 250 to 570 feet above sea level. The Neches River forms the western boundary of the county and the Angelina River the southeastern boundary. Three major reservoirs lie wholly or partly within the county: Lake Palestine, Striker Creek Reservoir, and Lake Jacksonville. The underlying Carrizo-Wilcox aquifer provides much of the water supply to municipalities. Average annual rainfall is 44.26 inches. The temperature ranges from an average low of 38° F in January to an average high of 94° F in July. The average growing season extends 258 days.

Early Indian habitation has been thoroughly investigated at the George C. Davis Site at Mound Prairie, six miles southwest of Alto. Evidence of all stages of southeastern Indian development has been found, beginning with the 12,000-year-old Clovis culture. Indian development reached its peak after the arrival of the Caddos about A.D. 780. The Early Caddoan Period, which lasted until about 1260, saw the development of Mound Prairie as a regional ceremonial center with three earthen mounds, the southwesternmost examples of the Mississippian mound-building culture. In the Late Caddoan Period, Mound Prairie was abandoned, but numerous sites show a continuing Caddo presence in the northern two-thirds of the county. At the time of European contact, two tribes of the Caddoan Hasinai Confederacy lived in the county: the Neches, in scattered hamlets between Mound Prairie and Alto, and the Nacachau, located north of the Neches.

Learn more at The Handbook of Texas Online - Cherokee County, Texas