Emergency Crime Scene and Biohazard Cleanup in Eastland, TX

Eastland is the county seat of Eastland County, Texas, named for Captain William Mosby Eastland, a hero of San Jacinto and the Mier Expedition who was executed in the Black Bean lottery in 1843.

The townsite was platted in 1875 by Jacamiah S. Daugherty and Charles U. Connellee, and county voters chose it as the new county seat that year because it sat closer to the county's center; by January 1876 it had about 250 residents.

Eastland was incorporated on June 6, 1891, with W. Q. Connellee as its first mayor.

Eastland is famous for the legend of "Old Rip," a horned toad placed in the cornerstone of the county courthouse on July 19, 1897; when the cornerstone was opened on February 28, 1928, the toad was reportedly found alive after 31 years sealed inside, drawing national publicity.

Old Rip died of pneumonia in 1929, and his remains are still displayed in a glass-front casket in the present Eastland County Courthouse; the town celebrates him with an annual Old Rip parade each October.

After oil was discovered nearby in 1917, Eastland became the legal and commercial center of a fabled Texas oil boom — some estimates put as many as 10,000 people in town at the boom's height in 1919, and the city's census population peaked at 4,648 in 1930.

Eastland County itself was created on February 1, 1858, from Bosque, Coryell, and Travis County territory and organized in 1873, with Eastland as its seat since 1875.

Eastland stands at the intersection of State Highways 6 and 112, just northwest of Interstate 20, on the Missouri Pacific Railroad line.

Eastland's population was 3,609 in the 2020 census, living in 1,474 households.