Bridgetown

BRIDGETOWN, TEXAS . Bridgetown is on a rural road off State Highway 240 seventeen miles northwest of Wichita Falls in north central Wichita County. It developed with the northwest extension of the Burkburnett oilfield qv in 1920 and derived its name from its location at the south end of a mile-long wooden toll bridge across the Red River, connecting Wichita County with Tillman County, Oklahoma. As Bridgetown was born during the county's oil boom, it naturally attracted residents more interested in profit than in the establishment of a permanent community. The settlement was little more than a collection of tents sprawled along a stretch of the Red River bounded by a mission and a "notorious dive." Liquor, although prohibited by law in Bridgetown, could be obtained with ease almost anywhere in town.