Buffalo Springs is an
unincorporated community
An unincorporated area is a parcel of land that is not governed by a local general-purpose municipal corporation. (At p. 178.) They may be governed or serviced by an encompassing unit (such as a county) or another branch of the state (such as th ...
in
Clay County,
Texas
Texas ( , ; or ) is the most populous U.S. state, state in the South Central United States, South Central region of the United States. It borders Louisiana to the east, Arkansas to the northeast, Oklahoma to the north, New Mexico to the we ...
, United States.
According to the
Handbook of Texas, the community had a population of 51 in 2000. It is located within the
Wichita Falls metropolitan area.
History
In 1864, 25 people built an outpost and attempted to create a farming community, marking the beginning of settlement in the area. Due to frequent
Indian attacks and protracted
drought
A drought is a period of drier-than-normal conditions.Douville, H., K. Raghavan, J. Renwick, R.P. Allan, P.A. Arias, M. Barlow, R. Cerezo-Mota, A. Cherchi, T.Y. Gan, J. Gergis, D. Jiang, A. Khan, W. Pokam Mba, D. Rosenfeld, J. Tierney, ...
, the settlers left the area, and it remained deserted until 1878 when brothers C. O. and J. Q. Burnett established themselves approximately 0.5 miles from the outpost's remains. In that year, the post office opened in the ensuing settlement, which was named for Buffalo Creek located nearby. Buffalo Springs had 200 residents by the middle of the 1890s, along with a few stores and two
cotton gin
A cotton gin—meaning "cotton engine"—is a machine that quickly and easily separates cotton fibers from their seeds, enabling much greater productivity than manual cotton separation.. Reprinted by McGraw-Hill, New York and London, 1926 (); ...
s. The main industries for the locals were farming and stockraising. By the mid-1920s, the recorded population had dropped to 115 from 125 in 1914. Buffalo Springs had many small businesses and two churches in the 1930s. Its population decreased from 100 in the 1950s to 60 by the mid-1960s and 51 in 2000 after the post office was closed in 1954.
Geography
Buffalo Springs is located at the intersection of
Farm to Market Roads 3077 and
174, south of
Henrietta and north of
Jacksboro in south-central Clay County.
is also located near Buffalo Springs.
Education
Buffalo Springs had its own school in the 1930s.
Today, the Buffalo Springs area is served by the
Midway Independent School District.
See also
*
List of unincorporated communities in Texas
References
{{authority control
Unincorporated communities in Texas
Unincorporated communities in Clay County, Texas
Wichita Falls metropolitan area