Boyd

Boyd is on State Highway 114 seven miles south of Decatur in southern Wise County. In the early 1890s farmers settled at the site, in the curve of the North Fork of the Trinity River. The community was originally referred to as Greasy Bend because the area was used to fatten hogs. After the Rock Island line reached the town in 1893, the settlement was renamed Parkhurst in honor of a railroad official. The community received a post office branch in September 1893. Sometime later, railroad officials complained that Parkhurst might become confused with Park Springs, a town just down the line, and Parkhurst citizens selected the name Boyd for their town, in honor of H. S. Boyd, another railroad executive. The Boyd community incorporated in 1895 and soon became a retail point for area farmers. Until the 1940s cotton and livestock were the area's principal agricultural products; afterward Boyd became a center for melons. In the late 1950s the town began to serve as a bedroom community for citizens working in Fort Worth. Its population increased from 496 to 525 between 1940 and 1960 and grew steadily thereafter. In 1990 Boyd reported a population of 1,041 and forty-five businesses; in 2000 the community had 1,099 inhabitants and 152 businesses.