Seminole and Gaines County are home to a large population of Low German Mennonites from Russia that came to West Texas in the 1980s.

[5] It is the birthplace of country music singers Larry Gatlin and Tanya Tucker.

[6] Plautdietsch-speaking Mennonites became an ethnoreligious group in the Russian Empire and migrated from there to Canada and then to Mexico.

In 1977, some 100 families from Mexico bought land southwest of Seminole to settle there, but faced difficulties with immigration.

In 1980, President Jimmy Carter signed legislation allowing the original 100 families to gain full citizenship.

[8] According to the United States Census Bureau, the city has a total area of 3.3 square miles (8.5 km2), all land.

The climate is cold semiarid (Köppen: BSk) affected by elevation with well defined seasons, more extreme and drier than most of the great cities of Texas.