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In February 1858 the Texas legislature formed Knox County from lands formerly assigned to Young and Bexar counties; because the area remained unsettled, it was again decreed a county in 1876 and attached to Baylor County in 1879 for administrative purposes. In 1880 only three farms or ranches were in operation in the county, and the census counted seventy-seven residents. Settlers came in larger numbers between 1880 and 1900. Robert D. Goree, who came as a cattleman to Northwest Texas in 1882, opened up the land to agriculture by encouraging people from older states and other Texas counties to move into Knox County. The county was organized in 1886, with the town of Benjamin, founded by Hillary Bedford in 1884 and named for his oldest son, as county seat. The first courthouse, a small box-and-strip building, was replaced by a native stone structure in 1888.
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