Outdoor Living in Runnels County, Texas

Building in Runnels County

Runnels County is in west central Texas. Ballinger, the county seat and largest town, is 225 miles west of Dallas and 200 miles northwest of Austin. The county covers 1,060 square miles and borders Nolan and Taylor counties on the north, Coleman on the east, Concho on the south, and Tom Green and Coke on the west.

Broad, rolling prairie ranges from 1,650 to 2,350 feet, broken in the northeast by steep limestone hills such as Moro Mountain. Soils of black waxy and sandy loam lie mostly shallow to moderately deep over limy earth, red beds, or limestone. Temperatures range from 34° to 96° F. Rainfall averages twenty-two inches, and the growing season is usually 228 days.

Fort Chadbourne, set up in 1852 just west of the county line, protected the few traders and stockmen in the area until 1861. The legislature established Runnels County on February 1, 1858, naming it for Hiram G. Runnels, an ex-governor of Mississippi and a Texas legislator. Pickettville, the first civilian settlement, began in 1862. Cattlemen took over the grasslands in the late 1870s, and the county was organized in February 1880.

NOAA’s Storm Events Database lists 67 hail reports in Runnels County from 2016 to 2025, 64 of them an inch across or larger, with stones up to 4 inches. The same records show 22 damaging thunderstorm wind reports, with gusts up to about 90 mph, and 5 tornadoes. That is why a patio cover’s roof panels, fasteners and posts here are chosen for hail and wind, not only for shade.