Close City

Close City, on Ranch Road 399 two miles north of U.S. Highway 380 and eleven miles west of Post in western Garza County, was on a site within the area purchased in 1906 by Charles William Post for his projected settlement. So many of the first inhabitants used tents for homes that the village was called Ragtown, but it was later renamed Close City. For a while Post encouraged construction there, until surveyors discovered that the site was eleven miles from the geographical center of the county and thus could not serve as the location of the county seat. Post ordered work to stop in Close City and proceeded to select the present site of Post. Close City consequently developed slowly. By 1920 it had a store, a school, two churches, and a population of fifty. Though the school consolidated with the Post Independent School District in the 1950s, the store and two churches were still present in the community in the 1980s. Close City had a population of 107 in 1990 and ninety-four in 2000.