Biohazard Cleanup Near South Inez Inez, TX

Inez is a census-designated place in Victoria County, Texas, on Interstate 69 and U.S. Highway 59 about fifteen miles northeast of Victoria near the Jackson County line, and its name is pronounced EYE-nez.

Inez is one of the largest census-designated places in Texas by land area, covering 59.6 square miles, yet it is so rural that its population density is only about 44 people per square mile.

The community was originally called Arenosa, after nearby Arenosa Creek, and it had a post office under that name in 1851-52 and again from 1877 to 1883.

Rancher Henry Clay Koontz settled the Inez area in 1881 and ran a store on Arenosa Creek, and in 1882 the community was renamed Inez when the New York, Texas and Mexican Railway arrived, in honor of the daughter of railroad president Count Joseph Telfener.

By 1900 the young town of Inez had a lumberyard, a railway station, a bank, a hotel, and a Wells Fargo office.

Inez grew from just 200 people in 1920 to 1,371 in 1990, 2,098 in 2010, and 2,641 in the 2020 census, when it had 805 households and 698 families.

Inez is a ranching and grain-farming center and is also the site of the Koontz and Keeran oilfields.

The Inez community hall was rebuilt in 1962 after Hurricane Carla destroyed the original building the year before.

The Inez area is layered with early Texas history - the Spanish mission Nuestra Senora del Espiritu Santo de Zuniga and the Nuestra Senora de Loreto Presidio stood in the vicinity, as did Fort St. Louis, the late-17th-century French colony planted by La Salle near present-day Inez.

Most of the Inez CDP lies in the Industrial Independent School District, home of the Cobras, and all of Victoria County is in the service area of Victoria College.