County offices will be closed Monday, June 20, 2022 for the Juneteenth holiday. Juneteenth – short for June 19th – commemorates the end of slavery in the United States.
Although the Emancipation Proclamation became official on January 1, 1863, it was on June 19, 1865 when General Gordon Granger arrived in Galveston, Texas and announced the war was over and all slaves were free (until then, there were approximately 250,000 people held in slavery in Texas). Later that year, the 13th Amendment was ratified.
Juneteenth became a National Holiday in 2021.