Appleville

Coy City, also known as Appleville, is on Farm Road 99 some ten miles west of Karnes City in western Karnes County. It was named after the family of Trinidad Coy, whose forebears were among the first Spanish settlers of Texas. When the Butler, Nichols, and Adams ranches were subdivided into farms, John W. Roberts and his family were the first to settle at the site in 1916. In 1918 "Dad" Ratliff built a store for the farming community, and the place was briefly called Appleville because about all one could buy there was "red sodey pop and apples." Shortly after World War I Jenny Van Winkle built another store on the Appleville site, and Bud Wattle built a cotton gin nearby. R. J. Polasek built a new gin about a mile west, soon to be joined by another store and a café. R. H. Coats, who operated the store, called the place Coats City, but the name was changed to Coy City after the Coy family. A post office was established there in 1930 and served some thirty residents and two businesses. By 1939 the community reported a population of 100 and four businesses. It peaked in the late 1940s with 150 inhabitants and five businesses. The Pullin School, later renamed Coy City School, and the Pullin Church, replaced in 1945 by the Coy City Baptist Church, were built in the community. After the great drought of the 1950s the population of Coy City dwindled, and by the late 1960s it had only eighty-five residents and one business. By the 1980s its population had fallen to around thirty, and eventually its stores, cotton gin, school, and post office were closed. In 1990 the community reported a population of thirty, and only the Baptist church and a small cluster of residences remained.