Ochiltree County was formed from Young and Bexar territories, created on August 21, 1876, and organized on February 21, 1889. It was named in honor of William Beck Ochiltree, 1811-1867, who served as Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of Texas in 1842, Secretary of the Treasury in 1844, the last Attorney General of the Republic of Texas, a member of the Texas Legislature in 1855, a delegate to the Secession Convention of 1861, and a colonel in the Confederate army. Its county seat was Ochiltree in 1889 and has been Perryton since 1920.