DUANE
Duane's take
The official marker's the source here, and I'm just the voice that rides along with it. Now let me tell you about a place called Edith, out in Coke County. Cattlemen came first, running their herds on open range the way Texas ranchers do — or did, anyway, before the world changed on them.
Stock-farming homesteaders followed, and together those two kinds of people started building something. Development, the marker says, began in the early 1880s, and the thing that kicked it off was Winfield Scott — a rancher — fencing his spread. After that, the area filled out the way a proper community does: three schools, a lodge hall, a tabernacle, a general store, a cotton gin, and a blacksmith shop.
That's not a settlement, friends. That's a town with ambitions. Then comes 1890, and somebody's got to name the post office.
They chose Edith — specifically, Edith Bonsall, an admired young lady of Ballinger. Whoever made that call, they made it with feeling. Now here's where the story turns, slow and quiet the way these stories always do.
The schools started dwindling, then combined, then consolidated with those of nearby Robert Lee. The trend toward urban living kept pulling people away, the way it does, steady as a current. The post office held on longer than most things — all the way to 1955 — and then it closed too.
And Edith declined. A town named for an admired young lady, built by cattlemen and homesteaders, outlasted by the very forces that make the next town seem a little more convenient, a little more necessary. That's the whole of it, right there on a marker in Coke County.
What the marker says
Settled by cattlemen who ran herds on open range, and stock-farming homesteaders. Development began in early 1880's after Winfield Scott, rancher, fenced his spread. Area had three schools, lodge hall, tabernacle, general store, cotton gin and blacksmith shop. The post office, established in 1890, was named for Edith Bonsall, an admired young lady of Ballinger. It closed in 1955. Dwindling schools combined, then consolidated with those of nearby Robert Lee. As trend toward urban living increased, Edith declined. (1969)