COMMUNITIES

Once touted as “The Future Great Town of West Texas”, Abilene has become just that. Located just 150 miles west of the Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex, Abilene offers all the charms of the old west while providing the advantages of a contemporary city. The frontier to West Texas is now home to 120,000 residents, with a median age of 32. Abilene ...

Once touted as “The Future Great Town of West Texas”, Abilene has become just that. Located just 150 miles west of the Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex, Abilene offers all the charms of the old west while providing the advantages of a contemporary city. The frontier to West Texas is now home to 120,000 residents, with a median age of 32. Abilene ...

Once touted as “The Future Great Town of West Texas”, Abilene has become just that. Located just 150 miles west of the Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex, Abilene offers all the charms of the old west while providing the advantages of a contemporary city. The frontier to West Texas is now home to 120,000 residents, with a median age of 32. Abilene ...

H Motto: “A Star of the Texas Midwest.” H 2007 Est. Pop.: 2,580. H Location: 26 miles north of Abilene at U.S. Highways 83/277 and 180. Anson was originally known as Jones City when it was founded in anticipation of the railroad coming through. The fledging town managed to survive the bypassing of the rail line because ranchers and farmers ...

2002 Est. Pop: 121. Location: 43 miles north of Abilene in Jones County on State Highway 6 and farm market roads 600 and 1636. History: Avoca’s original name when settlers first came in the 1880s was Spring Creek. With the official opening of a post office in 1893, the name of record became Avo. Seven years later general store owner ...

Motto: “Antique Capital of West Texas” 2007 Est. Pop.: 1,614 Location: 21 miles east of Abilene at Interstate 20 and U.S. Highway 283. Baird started as a railroad construction camp in 1880 when the Texas and Pacific Railway was making its way into the area. The town, which grew to include a depot, roundhouse and repair shops, is named after ...

2007 Est. Pop.: 448. H Location: 14 miles south of Abilene on FM 89. The town’s name is descriptive of its location in a hollow nestled in a gap in the Tonkawa Mountains, which was a favorite gateway of millions of bison to reach their southern grazing grounds. On the Net www.jimnedvalley.com

2000 Est. Pop.: 100. Location: 8 miles southwest of Abilene on U.S. Highway 277 and FM 707. History: An acre of land given by J. Stoddard Johnston of Abilene to Anna and Ira Rollins Borders as a wedding present in 1882 eventually turned into a town named Border’s Chapel. In two years, the community grew to 40 families served by ...

2007 Est. Pop.: 3,742. Location: East of Abilene 15 miles on Interstate 20. The first settler in the town that was to become known as Clyde was R.J. Estes in 1876. The community is named after Robert Clyde, a crew foreman with the Texas and Pacific Railroad that came through the area in 1880. He also ran a commissary for ...

Motto: “Home of Conan the Barbarian Author, Robert E. Howard.” 2007 Est. Pop.: 1,062. Location: 44 miles southeast of Abilene at junction of State Highways 36 and 206 The settlement of Cross Plains was originally known as Turkey Creek and Schleicher before the establishment of a post office in 1877. Three years later, the community had grown to include a ...

Location: Just west of Abilene. History:  Abilene’s rich history as a home of military installations dates to 1940 when Abilenians raised money to purchase land for a U.S. Army base eventually called Camp Barkeley southwest of town. At the camp’s adjunct Tye Army Air Field, Army Air Corp cadets learned to fly. At the end of World War II, the ...

Location: 8 miles east of Abilene at Elmdale Road South and FM 18. History: Elmdale started as a small railroad settlement in the early 1880s. The origin of the town’s name is unclear:  either it was because early settlers saw a mirage of elm trees, or elms really were present at the time of its founding. By 1902 36 pupils ...

Location: Lake Fort Phantom Hill is between farm roads 600 and 2833 about 10 miles north of Abilene in the southern portion of Jones County. 2006 Est. Pop.:  The City of Abilene, which owns the lots around Lake Fort Phantom Hill, estimates that 1,500-1,700 Abilenians live in Jones County around the lake. History: In 1937, the City of Abilene began ...

Location: Hamby is a rural neighborhood 10 miles northeast of Abilene at the intersection of State Highway 351 and Elmdale Road North/CR 520. History: At the northeast corner of Taylor County, the community first known as Corners sprung up because of its close proximity to Jones, Callahan and Shackelford counties. After the U.S. Postal Service turned down the town name ...

Motto: “Reflecting the Past, Living the Present, Building the Future.” 2007 Est. Pop.: 2,170. Location: 44 miles north of Abilene at U.S. Highway 83 and State Highways 57 and 92. The town’s namesake and founding are related to the expectation of the coming of a railroad company. The Kansas City, Mexico and Orient Railway received land from R.D. Moore in ...

2007 Est. Pop.: 640. Location: 13 miles north of Abilene on U.S. Highway 277. Notable Landscape: The area around Hawley is known as the Shinnery because of its shin oak trees and sandy soil. History: After the first settler put down roots to the area in 1890, Hawley gained a permanent toehold on the land because of two major transportation ...

2007 Est. Pop.: 40. Location: Impact is a 47-acre incorporated city along Impact Drive east of Old Anson Road, within Abilene’s city limits on the north side of town. History: Impact was founded in 1960 by entrepreneurial businessman Dallas Perkins on 47 acres he owned north of Abilene, including 20 acres originally used as a family poultry farm. He named ...

2007 Est. Pop.: 349. Location: 25 miles south of Abilene on U.S. Highway 84. History: Lawn originally was founded in 1894 but a second settlement called New Lawn formed in 1909 where the town is located today when the Santa Fe Railroad bypassed the original town site. New Lawn had previously been known as Jim Ned, in honor of a ...

2007 Est. Pop:  282. Location: 44 miles north of Abilene on State Highway 6 at Farm Road 1597 in Jones County. History:  The earliest farming efforts in the Lueders area, nestled along part of the Clear Fork of the Brazos River, date to the mid-1850s. Ranching activities soon followed. Representatives of the Webb and Hill Land and Cattle Company spearheaded ...

Location: Lytle Lake is located in southeast Abilene, just north of Loop 322 and Oldham Lane. History: Work began in 1897 to impound Lytle Creek, named after early settler John Lytle, to form Lytle Lake. The new reservoir originally served as a water supply for Abilene, but it was drought prone. In 1917-18 the lake went completely dry, prompting the ...

Motto: “The Windmill City.” 2007 Est. Pop: 2,656. Location: 16 miles west of Abilene on Interstate 20. History: Like so many communities along Interstate 20, Merkel’s early founding and growth is related to the arrival of the Texas and Pacific Railway in the early 1880s. Originally known as Windmill Town, the community was renamed in honor of its first settler, ...

2000 Pop.: 75. Location: 36 miles southeast of Abilene at State Hwy 604 and FM 2926. History:  Oplin, founded in the 1890s, may have been named after a town in South America. The town had its own post office from 1903 to the mid-1960s. The small farming community’s population peaked to about 300 in 1915. Sources: The Handbook of Texas ...

2000 Est. Pop.: 225. Location: 23 miles south of Abilene at U.S. Highway 83 and FM 614. History: In May 2008 Ovalo residents and exes celebrated the town’s centennial, dating to when the Abilene and Southern Railway Company came through. Before the town formed, the area was a popular early stop for buffalo hunters and trail drivers going through Buffalo ...

2007 Est. Pop.: 1,645. Location: About 6 miles southeast of Abilene’s city limits in the area of FM 1750. The U.S. Census Bureau labels Potosi as a census-designated place, which means it is a closely settled, named, unincorporated community. History: When applying for a post office, R.A. Pollard named Potosi in 1893 after a town in Mexico. The Pollard family ...

Motto: “Lone Star Tradition, Small-Town Heart.” 2007 Est. Pop.: 3,599. Location: 42 miles north of Abilene at U.S. Highway 277 and State Highways 6 and 92. Sons of Svante Magnus Swenson, founder of the historic Swenson Ranch, persuaded officials with the Texas Central Railroad to pass a route through their ranch. The family donated land for a town site, which ...

2007 Est. Pop.: 312. Location: 22 miles west of Abilene on Interstate 20. History: The Texas and Pacific Railway founded Trent in 1881 as a halfway stopping point on the 860-mile line between Texarkana and El Paso. About seven miles west of Trent is Eskota. The towns bear other’s intended names, but a sign mix-up led to their current monikers. ...

2007 Est. Pop.: 748. Location: 19 miles south of Abilene on U.S. Highway 83. Physician Clarence M. Cash founded Tuscola in 1899, naming it after his former residence in Illinois. The town was relocated to its present site after the Abilene and Southern Railway came through in 1907. The town is near the west fork of the Jim Ned Creek, ...

2007 Est. Pop: 1,162. Location: Eight miles west of Abilene and just north of Dyess Air Force Base. History: The earliest settlements in the area were stage stations stretched about every 20 miles for the Butterfield Mail and Stage Line, which operated from 1858 to 1861. Twice weekly stages ferried passengers between Tennessee and California. Speedier railroad transportation made a ...

2000 Pop.: 75. Location: 11 miles southwest of Abilene on U.S. Highway 277 and FM 1235. History: View became a registered town site in 1910, but a Baptist church previously had been organized at the site. The town was a direct result of the efforts of the Sweetwater-based Western Development Company, which was trying to capitalize on the building of ...

Location: Wylie is a thriving community south of Abilene centered around a school district – not to be confused with the incorporated city of Wylie located northeast of Dallas. History:  Wylie Independent School District is named after J.J. Wylie, who traveled from Mississippi to the southern Taylor County area in 1880 to farm. In 1902 his widow donated land for ...