Newport 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 ...

Clay Clay is a type of fine-grained natural soil material containing clay minerals (hydrous aluminium phyllosilicates, e.g. kaolinite, ). Most pure clay minerals are white or light-coloured, but natural clays show a variety of colours from impuriti ...

and

Jack Jack may refer to: Places * Jack, Alabama, US, an unincorporated community * Jack, Missouri, US, an unincorporated community * Jack County, Texas, a county in Texas People and fictional characters * Jack (given name), a male given name, incl ...

counties in

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 Texas State Historical Association (TSHA) is an American nonprofit educational and research organization dedicated to documenting the history of Texas. It was founded in Austin, Texas, United States, on March 2, 1897. In November 2008, the ...

, the community had a population of 70 in 2000. It is located within the

Wichita Falls metropolitan area The Wichita Falls metropolitan statistical area is a metropolitan area in North Texas that covers three counties – Archer County, Texas, Archer, Clay County, Texas, Clay, and Wichita County, Texas, Wichita. As of the United States Census, 2010, ...

History

The community was first known as Bear Hill when L. Hancock founded it in 1872. After a post office opened there in 1878, the name was changed to Newport the following year. Newport is a word created by merging the initial letters of the surnames of seven prominent locals. Newport had 176 residents by 1900. By the middle of the 1920s, it had grown to 280, and it remained there until the mid-1940s, when twelve local enterprises began operations, and into the 1930s. The population had decreased to 85 by the middle of the 1950s, and there were just three companies. 70 people were projected to live in Newport between the 1960s and 2000. By 1990, Newport had grown into Jack County and had only one business listed. On April 5–6, 1955, an F3 tornado hit the towns of

Antelope The term antelope refers to numerous extant or recently extinct species of the ruminant artiodactyl family Bovidae that are indigenous to most of Africa, India, the Middle East, Central Asia, and a small area of Eastern Europe. Antelopes do ...

, Shannon, and Newport, but did not cause any damage.

Geography

Newport is located at the intersection of Farm to Market Roads 2127 and

1288 Year 1288 ( MCCLXXXVIII) was a leap year starting on Thursday of the Julian calendar. Events By place Europe * A civil war breaks out on Gotland between the burghers of Visby and the rural farmers of Gotland; while the exact reason ...

Texas State Highway 59 State Highway 59 (SH 59) is a state highway that runs from Jacksboro to St. Jo in 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 borde ...

, southeast of

Henrietta Henrietta may refer to: * Henrietta (given name), a feminine given name, derived from the male name Henry Places * Henrietta Island in the Arctic Ocean * Henrietta, Mauritius * Henrietta, Tasmania, a locality in Australia United States * Hen ...

in extreme southeastern Clay County and northeastern Jack County.

Education

Today, Newport is served by the

Bowie Independent School District The Bowie Independent School District is a public school district based in Bowie, Texas (USA). Located in Montague County, the district also serves the city of Sunset. Small portions of the district extend into Jack and Clay counties. Finan ...

Notable people

John Coyle White John Coyle White (November 26, 1924 – January 21, 1995) was an American Democratic politician from Texas. He was the longest-serving Texas Commissioner of Agriculture, first elected in 1950 and serving until his resignation in 1977. He was ...

served more than twenty-six years as the elected commissioner of the

Texas Department of Agriculture The Texas Department of Agriculture (TDA) is a state agency within the state of Texas, which is responsible for matters pertaining to agriculture, rural community affairs, and related matters. It is currently headed by Agriculture Commissioner S ...

. White was the chairman of the

Democratic National Committee The Democratic National Committee (DNC) is the principal executive leadership board of the United States's Democratic Party (United States), Democratic Party. According to the party charter, it has "general responsibility for the affairs of the ...

from 1978 to 1981. *Felix G. Bransford, who served on the

20th Texas Legislature The 20th Texas Legislature met from January 11 to April 4, 1887, in regular session, and from April 16 to May 15, 1888, in a called session. All members of the House of Representatives and a portion of the members of the Senate were elected in the ...

. *

Newby O. Brantly Newby Odell Brantly (April 13, 1905 – July 19, 1993) was an American inventor, engineer and entrepreneur Entrepreneurship is the creation or extraction of economic value in ways that generally entail beyond the minimal amount of risk ( ...

, founder of the

Brantly Helicopter Corporation Brantly International Inc. is an American helicopter company with its engineering and administrative offices based Coppell, Texas, United States. Manufacturing of Brantly-designed helicopters is now carried out by Qingdao Haili Helicopters of Chi ...

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References

{{authority control Unincorporated communities in Texas Geography of Clay County, Texas