Dawson County was recently named one of the fastest growing counties in the nation, but local officials are parsing out what those numbers really mean for population growth in the once-sleepy county that now boasts an impressive retail corridor. The U.S. Census Bureau recently released reports of the top 100 fastest-growing counties in the country, calculating the numbers in terms of percentage growth between July 2016 and July 2017. Dawson County had the 38th fastest growth in the country between 2016 and 2017, with a growth of 3.2 percent. That amounts to a population growth of 766 people, from 23,613 to 24,379. In 2008 Dawson County was ranked the 11th fastest growing county in the nation per the Census Bureau, based on numbers collected right before the downturn in the economy.