Cochran County was created on August 21, 1876, from Bexar County and was named for Robert Cochran, a native of New Jersey and a private who died for Texas Independence in the siege of the Alamo. Indian hostilities and the distance to market and supplies made settlement slow. The 1900 census listed 25 cowboys, the population was 75 in 1910 and 67 in 1920, and the county was organized on May 6, 1924, with Morton as county seat. Oil discovery and the development of irrigation caused rapid growth and made it a farm and petroleum center. It is also the site of Silver Lake, a saline lake known to early Spanish explorers as Laguna Quemado.