The present county boundaries of Red River County were established in 1847.

About this time (1847) a very revolutionary thing was undertaken in this county in the establishment of the first cotton gin. It was built at Concord near the present Whiterock settlement and was first run by a treadmill, with a horse or cow on the treadway. Later it was changed to water power by damming up a small stream to create the water power.

Cotton after this gradually became the money crop of Red River County.

From 1840 to 1867 wheat was extensively raised for home use.

The first settlers went to river, creek and branch bottoms and cleared the land with much labor. The prairie sod was too tough for the implements they had and it was also too far from water and good rail timber for making fences. The invention of barbed wire was later to make the cultivation of the prairie possible.

The first acre of black-land prairie to be cultivated in Red River County was broken by a man named Wheat and was just north of where the depot stands in Clarksville today.

The average price of cotton this ten years was 7 1/2c.

1850-1859

About 1850 cotton became the main cash crop in place of hides and furs.