The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 65, July 1961 - April, 1962 Page: 337
663 p. : ill., maps (some col.), ports. ; 23 cm.View a full description of this periodical.
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Population Trends in the Western Cross Timbers
frequency and continuity so as to attract more inhabitants into
the region. In spite of a cheap labor supply, few of the larger
industrial corporations have found the natural resources of the
heartland sufficiently adequate to attract them. As a result, the
lengthening shadows of population decline have increasingly fallen
across the province (Table i). The heartland in 196o remained a
region predominantly of small farms, but some of these were
being rapidly depleted and sometimes deserted. Most cities and
towns were growing at the expense of the rural areas, but the
entire heartland population had been steadily declining since the
end of the second decade of the twentieth century (Figure 2).
In this study brief attention will be given to select features of
the population of the heartland which emphasize the individual
character of the entire province, help determine its history and
development, and sometimes contribute to its decay. Population
growth and distribution will be discussed with particular atten-
tion to the rise of the agrarian culture, the resulting rural-urban
relationships, and the social consequences of increased mobility.
There have been at least two long-time population trends which
the heartland has experienced since the decades of settlement im-
mediately prior to the Civil War. The first trend was one of pop-
ulation increase and growth which began at a scarcely perceptible
rate and then rose sharply. The growth rate leveled off during
the drought years of the 188o's and then turned upward again
as it extended into the twentieth century. The rapid rate of
increase since 1890 is graphically illustrated in Figure 2.
The second trend was one of population decrease, and it had
its inception in the very first decade of the new century although
there was little or no general consciousness of the existence of the
decline until 192o. The first inconclusive evidence of the meager
beginnings of the new trend lay buried in the census figures of
1910o. The first trend as yet was not totally eclipsed for the heart-
land as a whole had increased 24.2 percent in the decade from
18go to 1900oo and another 15.3 percent from igoo to 1910 (Table
3). The rates of growth on the county levels, however, revealed
the first tremors of the pending population decline: Wise County
had a slight decrease of 2.5 percent during the preceding decade335
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Texas State Historical Association. The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 65, July 1961 - April, 1962, periodical, 1962; Austin, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth101195/m1/383/: accessed April 26, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Texas State Historical Association.