Outdoor Living in Eastland County, Texas

Building in Eastland County

Eastland County is in Central Texas, bordered by Erath County on the east, Stephens and Palo Pinto on the north, Callahan on the west, and Brown and Comanche on the south. It covers about 952 square miles. Eastland, the county seat, sits on Interstate Highway 20 some ninety-five miles west of Fort Worth and fifty-five miles east of Abilene.

The county is in the West Cross Timbers, with hilly, rolling terrain from 1200 to 1800 feet above sea level. Soils range from sandy to loamy, and the Leon River drains most of the land. Rainfall averages 27.09 inches a year. Temperatures average from 32° F in winter to 96° in summer, and the growing season averages 229 days.

The legislature formed the county in 1858 and named it for Capt. William Mosby Eastland, a member of the Mier Expedition. Indian raids kept it thinly settled until the 1870s. The new town of Eastland became the county seat after an election in 1875. By 1881 the Texas and Pacific and Texas Central railroads had arrived, opening the area to commercial farming and trade. Farms grew from 549 to 2,510 over the last twenty years of the nineteenth century.

NOAA’s Storm Events Database lists 32 hail reports in Eastland County from 2016 to 2025, 31 of them an inch across or larger, with stones up to 3 inches. The same records show 20 damaging thunderstorm wind reports, with gusts up to about 76 mph, and 3 tornadoes. That is why a patio cover’s roof panels, fasteners and posts here are chosen for hail and wind, not only for shade.