Hawk Cove, Texas, October 23, 2026. Twenty-six years ago this April, the City Council voted Hawk Cove up from a Type B city to a Type A city. Ordinance No. 100-5, adopted April 13, 2000, explains why in one sentence: “the City of Hawk Cove, Texas, meets this minimum population requirement and thus eligible to change its form of government.”
The requirement it meets is in the sentence just before: a city “may change to a Type-A General Law Municipality if the municipality has six hundred (600) or more inhabitants.” State law says the same thing, “has 600 or more inhabitants,” and offers two other ways in: “contains one or more manufacturing establishments within its corporate limits” or “is incorporated under any law of the Republic of Texas” (Tex. Loc. Gov’t Code §6.011(a)). The ordinance went with the inhabitants.
Highlights
- Inhabitants required: 600.
- Inhabitants counted by the U.S. Census on April 1, 2000, twelve days before the vote: 457.
- In 2010: 483. In 2020: 452.
- Number the Mayor gave at the same meeting, when a trash-contract bidder asked “the number of citizens that would be involved”: “248” (minutes, p. 1).
A careful vote
The minutes of that meeting record the discussion in full: “Ben Kinder discussed the need to change our city to a Type A from a Type B. After we become a Type A any ordinances we enact will have to be published in the newspaper, at least the caption and fines and penalties. Dorothy made motion to change to a Type A. Dave seconded. Motion carried.” Population does not come up. The trash contract and the tax-collection contract, voted on the same page, list each Place’s vote. The Type A motion says “Motion carried.”
State law asks that the record of the change be “attested by the municipality’s clerk or secretary under the corporate seal” and “filed and recorded in the office of the county clerk” (§6.012). On the ordinance’s second page, the City Secretary’s attestation line reads, in handwriting, “No One Appointed.” The Hunt County Clerk’s stamp on the same page reads “FILED AND RECORDED OFFICIAL PUBLIC RECORDS On: Jul 27,2006.” We admire a city that takes six years to be sure.
The count continues
The Census Bureau’s yearly estimates, which are calculations rather than counts, did put the City above 600 for a few years in the 2000s. The latest, for 2024, is 511. The counts, taken every ten years, have been 457, 483 and 452. No census has counted 600.
The ordinance says the City meets the 600-inhabitant minimum. The Census has not yet counted them. We look forward to meeting them. The full records, the statute and every count are on How Hawk Cove Became a Type A City.