Yarboro

Yarboro, on Farm Road 1748 and the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway in southern Grimes County, was founded about 1879 on a tract of land owned by James Quincy Yarborough, for whom the settlement was named. The nucleus of the community was the steam-powered gristmill and cotton gin constructed by Yarborough during the 1870s. By 1884 the Gulf, Colorado and Santa Fe Railway had extended a line through the settlement, transforming it into a shipping point for cotton, cottonseed, and other agricultural produce. A post office had also been established by that date, with Yarborough as postmaster. About 1890 an influx of German immigrants brought a number of Lutherans to the vicinity; in 1893 the community's first church, the Salem Lutheran congregation, was organized, and a combination home-school-meetinghouse was constructed in Yarboro. In 1884 the town had a population of thirty. By 1890 this figure had increased to seventy-five. At the peak of its development Yarboro had three general stores, a liquor store, a cotton gin, a train depot and telegraph office, and two schools. In 1936 the town had fifty residents and two accredited businesses. The post office was closed in 1953. By 1950 the population had declined to an estimated twenty, and no businesses remained. No population estimates have been available since 1969.