Newlin

NEWLIN, TEXAS . Newlin is on U.S. Highway 287 a mile north of the Prairie Dog Town Fork of the Red River in eastern Hall County. It is said to have been named for W. J. Newlin, who reportedly camped with Col. Charles Goodnight and Emanuel E. Dubbs qqv in the valley near the site on a buffalo hunt during the late 1870s. In 1889, after the Fort Worth and Denver City Railway had built across the county, Newlin allegedly helped plat the town, which was on land awarded by the state to Andrew M. Embry. A depot was erected on the west edge of town and for years was a favorite gathering place for the local populace. Embry built a two-story hotel and opened a lumberyard. Dave and Joe Grundy operated a real estate firm. W. H. Meador, who also served as depot agent, erected the first general store, in which a post office was established in February 1890. The first school also began in 1890, and a school district was formed the following year. Embry started a short-lived newspaper, the Newlin News, in 1893. In 1900 Rev. J. L. Pyle, a Baptist circuit rider, published a bimonthly newsletter, the Panhandle Baptist , from a dugout near Newlin. It ceased after the hired typesetter, Clara Horn, married, and no one could be found to replace her. By 1910 Newlin had telephone service and the Farmer's State Bank. The community also had a town band for several years. At its peak in the late 1920s Newlin had twenty-three businesses, four churches, a brick school, and a population of 457. The Great Depression forced the bank to close. The school district was consolidated with that of Estelline in 1947. The post office was discontinued in 1968. By 1980 one church remained, and the walls of the bank and the W. B. Ballard store were the only business structures still standing in Newlin. The population was listed at thirty-one in 1984 through 2000.