{"id":8055,"date":"2023-09-19T10:51:34","date_gmt":"2023-09-19T10:51:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/townsvillages.com\/us\/?p=8055"},"modified":"2026-08-16T19:08:20","modified_gmt":"2026-08-16T19:08:20","slug":"kent-county-texas","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/townsvillages.com\/us\/kent-county-texas\/","title":{"rendered":"Kent County, Texas"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Kent County is a county in Texas, United States, on the eastern edge of the Rolling Plains southeast of Lubbock. It had a population of 753 at the 2020 census and covers 903 square miles (2,340 km2) centred near 33\u00b011\u2032N 100\u00b046\u2032W.<\/p>\n<p>Jayton is the county seat, and its postal code is 79528. The county has one incorporated city, one census-designated place, and a scatter of unincorporated communities and a ghost town. Kent County observes Central Time and is one of only three remaining dry counties in Texas, with no legal alcohol sales.<\/p>\n<h2>Towns &amp; Villages in Kent County<\/h2>\n<p>Kent County has just five named places on record, reflecting its status as the sixth-least populous county in the state. Jayton is the sole incorporated city; Girard is a census-designated place; Clairemont, the original county seat, is now a ghost town; Harmony and Polar are small unincorporated communities. Texas has no civil townships, so none are listed below.<\/p>\n<div class=\"tv-table-scroll\">\n<table>\n<thead>\n<tr>\n<th>Place<\/th>\n<th>Type<\/th>\n<th>Pop.<\/th>\n<th>ZIP<\/th>\n<\/tr>\n<\/thead>\n<tbody>\n<tr>\n<td>Jayton<\/td>\n<td>City &middot; seat<\/td>\n<td>&mdash;<\/td>\n<td>79528<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td>Girard<\/td>\n<td>CDP<\/td>\n<td>&mdash;<\/td>\n<td>79518<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td>Clairemont<\/td>\n<td>Unincorp.<\/td>\n<td>&mdash;<\/td>\n<td>&mdash;<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td>Harmony<\/td>\n<td>Unincorp.<\/td>\n<td>&mdash;<\/td>\n<td>&mdash;<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td>Polar<\/td>\n<td>Unincorp.<\/td>\n<td>&mdash;<\/td>\n<td>&mdash;<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/div>\n<p>Clairemont served as the first county seat from 1892 until Jayton took over in 1907 after the Stamford &amp; Northwestern Railway bypassed it; almost nothing remains on the ground there today. Harmony and Polar have no current post office and are best located relative to Jayton on county roads rather than by a standalone ZIP code.<\/p>\n<h2>ZIP Codes<\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li>79528 &mdash; Jayton (post office town; also serves Clairemont, Harmony, and Polar)<\/li>\n<li>79518 &mdash; Girard<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>The two ZIP codes cover the entire county; households outside Jayton and Girard proper still use one or the other for mail.<\/p>\n<h2>Geography<\/h2>\n<p>Kent County sits on the Caprock&#8217;s eastern edge, where the flat farmland of the Rolling Plains breaks into the rougher, mesquite-covered breaks of the Double Mountain Fork of the Brazos River, which crosses the county and supplies most of its drainage. The terrain is largely rangeland used for cattle grazing, with cropland concentrated along the river bottoms. The county is almost entirely land, with only about 0.4 square miles of water.<\/p>\n<p>Kent County borders <a href=\"https:\/\/townsvillages.com\/us\/dickens-county\/\">Dickens County<\/a> to the north, King County (Texas) to the northeast, <a href=\"https:\/\/townsvillages.com\/us\/stonewall-county\/\">Stonewall County<\/a> to the east, <a href=\"https:\/\/townsvillages.com\/us\/fisher-county\/\">Fisher County<\/a> to the southeast, <a href=\"https:\/\/townsvillages.com\/us\/scurry-county\/\">Scurry County<\/a> to the south, <a href=\"https:\/\/townsvillages.com\/us\/garza-county\/\">Garza County<\/a> to the west, and <a href=\"https:\/\/townsvillages.com\/us\/crosby-county\/\">Crosby County<\/a> to the northwest.<\/p>\n<h2>Demographics<\/h2>\n<p>The 2020 census counted 753 residents, making Kent County the sixth-least populous county in Texas. Jayton and Girard are the only two named communities with meaningful population; the rest of the county&#8217;s residents live on ranches and farms across its 903 square miles, giving a density of well under one person per square mile. The population is almost entirely rural, with a median age near 53. Median household income in Kent County runs below the Texas median of $75,780, typical for a sparsely populated ranching county with a declining oil-era tax base.<\/p>\n<h2>Economy &amp; Local Life<\/h2>\n<p>Cattle ranching and dryland farming (cotton and wheat) anchor the county&#8217;s economy today, but Kent County&#8217;s modern history was shaped by oil: fields discovered in 1946 produced more than 448 million barrels through 1991 before declining. Jayton remains the trade center, with the county courthouse, a school, and a handful of local businesses. Kent County is served by Western Texas College&#8217;s rural district for higher education, and area students otherwise attend one of five school districts that reach into the county.<\/p>\n<h2>History<\/h2>\n<p>Kent County was created by the Texas Legislature in 1876 and organized in 1892, and is named for Andrew Kent, a Texan who died defending the Alamo in 1836. Clairemont was the first county seat; when the Stamford &amp; Northwestern Railway laid track through Jayton instead in 1907, businesses and the county government relocated, and Clairemont slowly emptied out to become the ghost town it is today. The county has remained legally dry since Prohibition-era local option elections, one of a shrinking handful of Texas counties that never repealed the ban.<\/p>\n<h2>Getting There<\/h2>\n<p>US Highway 380 crosses the county east\u2013west through Jayton, with State Highway 70 and State Highway 208 providing north\u2013south connections.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Snyder, Texas &mdash; 30 miles south<\/li>\n<li>Spur, Texas &mdash; 25 miles northwest<\/li>\n<li>Aspermont, Texas &mdash; 20 miles east<\/li>\n<li>Lubbock, Texas &mdash; 75 miles northwest<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>The nearest commercial airport is Lubbock Preston Smith International Airport.<\/p>\n<h2>Frequently Asked Questions<\/h2>\n<p><strong>Where is Kent County, Texas?<\/strong><br \/>It is in the Rolling Plains region of northwest Texas, southeast of Lubbock, with Jayton as its county seat.<\/p>\n<p><strong>What is the population of Kent County?<\/strong><br \/>753 people, as of the 2020 census, making it the sixth-least populous county in Texas.<\/p>\n<p><strong>How big is Kent County?<\/strong><br \/>903 square miles (2,340 km2), almost entirely land.<\/p>\n<p><strong>What is the county seat of Kent County?<\/strong><br \/>Jayton is the county seat and has been since 1907, when it replaced Clairemont.<\/p>\n<p><strong>How many towns are in Kent County?<\/strong><br \/>One incorporated city (Jayton), one census-designated place (Girard), and a handful of small unincorporated communities.<\/p>\n<p><strong>What ZIP codes are in Kent County?<\/strong><br \/>79528 (Jayton) and 79518 (Girard) cover the entire county.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Is Kent County a dry county?<\/strong><br \/>Yes. It is one of only three remaining counties in Texas with no legal alcohol sales.<\/p>\n<p>More counties in this state: <a href=\"https:\/\/townsvillages.com\/us\/category\/texas\/\">Towns and villages in Texas<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Kent County is a county in Texas, United States, on the eastern edge of the Rolling Plains southeast of Lubbock. It had a population of 753 at the 2020 census and covers 903 square miles (2,340 km2) centred near 33\u00b011\u2032N 100\u00b046\u2032W. Jayton is the county seat, and its postal code is 79528. The county has [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_titles_title":"Towns & Villages in Kent County, Texas","_seopress_titles_desc":"Kent County, Texas: population, Jayton the county seat, ZIP codes, towns and villages, geography, history and FAQs for this dry Rolling Plains county.","_seopress_robots_index":"","_seopress_robots_follow":"","_seopress_robots_imageindex":"","_seopress_robots_snippet":"","_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_robots_breadcrumbs":"","_seopress_robots_freeze_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_custom_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_canonical":"","_seopress_social_fb_title":"","_seopress_social_fb_desc":"","_seopress_social_fb_img":"","_seopress_social_fb_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_height":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_title":"","_seopress_social_twitter_desc":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_height":0,"_seopress_redirections_value":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled_regex":"","_seopress_redirections_logged_status":"","_seopress_redirections_param":"","_seopress_redirections_type":0,"_seopress_analysis_target_kw":"","_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[50],"tags":[6],"class_list":["post-8055","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","category-texas","tag-towns-and-cities","entry"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/townsvillages.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8055","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/townsvillages.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/townsvillages.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/townsvillages.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/townsvillages.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8055"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/townsvillages.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8055\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10174,"href":"https:\/\/townsvillages.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8055\/revisions\/10174"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/townsvillages.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8055"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/townsvillages.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8055"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/townsvillages.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8055"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}