Named for Ewen Cameron of the Mier expedition. Harlingen is not the courthouse.
Cameron County's seat is Brownsville, where the river meets the Gulf. A resort charge and an inland shop paper can share a day. Remote is the start.
Ewen Cameron, a Mier expedition captain killed in the Black Bean Episode, is the name. Brownsville is the seat. The county was formed in 1848 from Nueces County and from lands ceded by Mexico.
Willacy lies north, Hidalgo west, the Gulf east, and Mexico south. Harlingen, La Feria, Port Isabel, San Benito, and South Padre Island are the other communities listed. U.S. Highways 77, 83, and 281 end here, and so do the Missouri Pacific and the Southern Pacific. Eastern soils are sandy and saline. Inland soils run brown to red. Marsh grasses and bluestem occupy the Gulf edge. Brush, mesquite, and live oak occupy the plain behind it.
Charles Stillman laid the seat out beside Fort Brown. Palo Alto and Resaca de la Palma were fought here in May 1846, before the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo. Richard King and Mifflin Kenedy moved troops on the river with Stillman.
Brownsville, Harlingen, and the island can share a week.
The July 2026 Comptroller figure used here shows no county sales tax for Cameron County. State sales tax is 6.25%. Where a city has its own rate, that city rate stacks on the state rate and any county rate. The combined cap is 8.25%. City rates are not listed on this page.
Business personal property renditions go to the county appraisal district for Cameron County. Put April 15 on the calendar. That district's form says which date controls the list.
The franchise report is due May 15. Texas has no state income tax. Neither date goes away because of that.
A customs-week paper in Brownsville, a shop paper in Harlingen or San Benito, a resort charge on South Padre Island or at Port Isabel, and an inland paper from La Feria are separate labels even inside one company. Put down the town that is printed. South Padre can stay on the invoice without becoming the place where you review the month. Willacy and Hidalgo are the neighbors on the line. They do not get a copy of this file.
Book a time if two Cameron towns are one line.
Book a time to name the Cameron town
Sources:
Handbook of Texas: Cameron County
County sales tax is the July 2026 Texas Comptroller figure supplied in the project county file. Seat, year, name, and the county it was formed from are the same file.