[3] The county was founded in 1889 and is named for Richard Coke, the 15th governor of Texas and later a U.S. senator.

From about 1700 to the 1870s, Comanche, Tonkawa, Lipan Apache, Kickapoo and Kiowa roamed the county.

These tribes settled in rock shelters in the river and creek valleys, leaving behind artifacts and caches of seeds, implements, burial sites, petroglyphs, river shells, turkey and deer bones, flint knives, scrapers and points.

Between 1860 and the early 1880s, the only settlers in what became Coke County were ranchers attracted to open grazing land.

In 1882, the Texas and Pacific Railway began providing service to San Angelo, and settlers started coming into the region in somewhat larger numbers.

A few years later, the county was named after Confederate soldier, Texas governor and U.S. senator Richard Coke.

The county's first newspaper, the Hayrick Democrat, began publication in 1889, but was renamed the Rustler.

Dr. D.W. Key[12][13] started the town of Bronte, named after English writer Charlotte Brontë.

Oil discovery and related industries created a boom in Silver in the mid-20th century.

The Kansas City, Mexico and Orient Railway built tracks north from San Angelo in 1907, which benefited Tennyson, Bronte, and Fort Chadbourne.

Tax money derived from oil profits helped the county to improve infrastructure and public facilities and services for its citizens.

[19] In 1995 Louis Jones murdered United States Army soldier Tracie Joy McBride in Coke County after having kidnapped her from Goodfellow Air Force Base in San Angelo, Texas.