Dundee

DUNDEE, TEXAS . Dundee is on U.S. highways 82 and 277 twenty-seven miles southwest of Wichita Falls in northwestern Archer County. Several families were already living in the area when the town was laid out on the T Fork Ranch between 1886 and 1890. In 1890 the Wichita Valley Railway Company established a line between Wichita Falls and Seymour and constructed a three-story hotel at the station the railroad's president is said to have named for Dundee, Scotland. That year Amanda Giddens built the first post office and became postmistress. A school had begun by 1891, and in 1892 the town was described as a post office and station on the railway with a population of twenty-five. The railroad brought in more settlers. By 1896 the population was estimated at 199, and Dundee had two livestock dealers, a clothier, a general store, a hardware store, a seller of notions, and a Mr. Biffle who sold organs. The Methodists and Presbyterians organized in the late 1890s, and the Baptists in the early 1900s. Dundee prospered and became for a time the second largest town in Archer County. In 1909 a bank was established with Alex Albright as president. Albright later became well known as the owner of "probably the largest Karakul sheep ranch in the world," just outside Dundee.