Armstrong County, Texas

County ranked by announced AI data-center load

Undisclosed Announced AI load

Campuses

Lead operator

Google

Resi rate Δ (Xcel Energy SPS)

-0.1%

Home price Δ (3y)

n/a

Property tax Δ (3y)

-7.9%

Population (2024 ACS)

1,822

Median HH income (2024 ACS)

$72,750

Key takeaways

Armstrong County has 1,822 residents on 914 square miles, one of the smallest counties in Texas. The county seat is Claude, named in 1888 for a railroad engineer, and Charles Goodnight's JA Ranch once spanned over a million acres across Armstrong and five adjoining counties.Source: Census ACS 2024 B01003 + sources[0] (Wikipedia: Armstrong County, TX)
Google's Armstrong campus is part of a $40 billion Texas commitment through 2027 that includes Armstrong and Haskell County sites. The two are Google's only new Texas data center counties in the announcement.Source: sources[1] (Google: American Innovation Texas)
Property tax assessments fell 7.9% over three years against a Texas-high $72,750 median household income for a county this small. The drop is a rare cool-tone in a state where most rural counties saw double-digit assessment jumps.Source: data/cache/property_tax_yoy.csv (FIPS 48011) + Census ACS 2024 B19013
Xcel Energy SPS serves Armstrong's residential customers on the SPP grid, with a near-flat 0.1% 3-year rate decline. The campus will sit outside ERCOT, the only batch-4 Texas county not in the deregulated retail market.Source: data/cache/utility_rate_yoy.csv (Southwestern Public Service, TX) + data/sites/data_centers.csv

Just 5.8% of Armstrong residents live in poverty and only 0.9% are unemployed, the lowest poverty and unemployment of any Texas county in batch 4. The Google campus is landing in a county where the baseline labor market is essentially closed.Source: Census ACS 2023 B17001, B23025 (FIPS 48011)
81.8% of Armstrong households own their home, tied for the highest owner-occupied share in batch 4. Median gross rent is $1,010 on a rental stock of fewer than 130 units, meaning new arrivals have almost nowhere to land.Source: Census ACS 2023 B25003, B25064 (FIPS 48011)
Hispanic residents make up 9.6% of Armstrong's 1,883 people, the lowest Hispanic share of any rural Texas county in batch 4. 92.6% of residents are white alone, atypical for the southern High Plains.Source: Census ACS 2023 B03003, B02001 (FIPS 48011)
91.9% of Armstrong households have broadband at home, far above the rural Texas average. 93.0% of residents over 1 lived in the same house a year ago, the most settled population in batch 4.Source: Census ACS 2023 B28002, B07001 (FIPS 48011)