The Real Reason Behind Texas Being In Two Different Time Zones

Now that we're a week into the time change here in Texas, we're all caught up and feeling more like ourselves. It's still strange to have it get dark so early in the evening, I mean I feel like I want to fall asleep by 9 pm and that's out of the ordinary for me.

As much as we talk about Daylight Saving Time, there's something that doesn't get a whole lot of publicity in Texas, and I find it to be one of the stranger things when it comes to time.

Texas is such a big state, this we know. However, I didn't think it was big enough to be in TWO different time zones. If Daylight Saving Time confuses you, this should confuse you even more. There are a couple of counties (and a half) that are sitting in the Mountain time zone while the rest of the state sits in the Central time zone.

WHICH COUNTIES ARE IN THE MOUNTAIN TIME ZONE

There are two and a half counties that are sitting in the Mountain time zone in Texas. El Paso County and Hudspeth County are fully in the time zone. The half county?

That belongs to Culberson County where only a part of it is in the Mountain time zone. Can you imagine living in that county? You could go to a friends house and pick up an hour. That's so confusing.

HOW DID TEXAS END UP IN TWO TIME ZONES

It goes back to the days where the United States didn't have standardized time. It was up to the different communities to set their time. The way most set their time was based on where the sun was at a certain point in the day.

When the sun was highest in the sky, they referred to it as "high noon" and that is what helped them determine what time it was and how to set their time zone. Seems like this could create a bit of a mess truthfully. Well, it did.

HOW MANY TIMES ZONES WERE THERE

Because of this, the Bureau of Transportation Statistics noted that at one point, there were more than 144 different local times in the US. Yeah, that would get rather confusing if you ask me. It wasn't such a big deal initially, but it did become an issue a bit later.

The creation of the railroad and faster travel options made timekeeping a very important thing, and because of it, they had to find a way to lessen how many different times there were in the country.

In 1883, the creation of the four time zones was created in order to help coordinate the train schedules so they could all be on the same page.

IS THIS HOW TEXAS ENDED UP IN TWO TIME ZONES

When they initially configured it, the entire state of Texas and the eastern part of New Mexico ended up in the Central time zone. However, because the lines were just drawn in a straight line, the westernmost part of Texas ended up in the Mountain time zone.

Other states that found themselves split between Central and Mountain time zones were Colorado, Wyoming, and Montana. Those have all corrected themselves, however, the few Texas counties remained in the Mountain time zone, and it hasn't been changed since.

COULD THEY HAVE BEEN CENTRAL TIME

The short answer to that question is yes, they could have. In 1921, there was an update to the time zones and it got Texas to be all in the Central time zone. Just about the entire state celebrated the shift...except those couple of counties.

In fact, they protested the change and refused to operate on Central time. Those counties unofficially ran on Mountain time through the 1960's.

When the Uniform Time Act of 1966 was adopted, the City of El Paso latched up with the county and chamber of commerce to fight it and they adopted a resolution together that allowed them to stay on Mountain time officially.