[4] The Brazos Indian Reservation, founded by General Randolph B. Marcy in 1854, provided a refuge from warring Comanche for the Delaware, Shawnee, Tonkawa, Wichita, Choctaw, and Caddo peoples, who had migrated into Texas from other areas.

[5][6] During December 1858, Choctaw Tom, a Yowani married to a Hasinai woman, at times served as an interpreter to Sam Houston.

But on December 27, Captain Peter Garland and a vigilante group attacked Choctaw Tom's camp, indiscriminately murdering and injuring women and children along with the men.

[7] Governor Hardin Richard Runnels[8] ordered Major John Henry Brown of the state militia to the area, with 100 troops to control potential retaliation and unrest.

In May 1859, John Baylor[10] led a number of whites who confronted the United States troops defending the reservation, demanding the surrender of certain men from the tribe who they thought were responsible for raids.

The military balked, and Baylor retreated, but he killed an Indian woman and an old man in the process.

On May 18, the Indians attacked a wagon train belonging to Henry Warren, killing all but five who escaped.

Commanding General of the United States Army William Tecumseh Sherman personally arrested Satank, Satanta, and Big Tree at Fort Sill and had them tried in civil court in Jacksboro.

Their sentences were commuted by Governor Edmund J. Davis at the request of a group of Quakers, and they were later paroled.

[15] Spanish Colonel Diego Ortiz Parrilla[16] travelled through the county en route to during the 1759 Red River Campaign.

The county was included in the 1841 Republic of Texas empresario Peters Colony land grant.

John and Will Peveler[19] established a ranch 2 mi (3.2 km) below Fort Belknap, becoming the first settlers.

Many of the citizens abandoned the area during the American Civil War due to Indian depredations.

A Williams Institute analysis of 2010 census data found about 2.6 same-sex couples per 1,000 households were in the county.

As was commonly the case in the Solid South, Young County voters at the presidential level cast their ballots predominantly for the Democratic candidate from 1912 through the 1960s, the two major exceptions being in 1952 and 1956, both of which featured native son Dwight D. Eisenhower as the Republican candidate.