Bryson

Bryson, on U.S. Highway 380 fourteen miles southwest of Jacksboro in southwestern Jack County, was known until the early 1880s as Mount Hecla, then renamed in honor of Henry Bryson, who built the first residence, a log house, in 1878 and later became a county commissioner. Postal service to Mount Hecla began in 1878; the name of the post office was changed to Bryson in 1884. The tracks of the Chicago, Rock Island and Texas Railway reached the community in 1903, and Bryson had its own bank by 1907. For the first fifty years of its history Bryson was mainly a business and school community of area cattlemen. Though oil was discovered in the county in 1898, not until the mid-1920s did Bryson become the processing center for local oil producers. Oil increased the town's population until Bryson became the second largest town in the county. By 1931 it was incorporated, and in 1947 it had an estimated 806 residents, the largest number in the town's history. As oil production declined, so did the population, which by the late 1970s was 450. In the early 1980s population growth resumed, and by 1988 Bryson had an estimated 690 residents served by seven businesses. In 1990 the population was 520. The population was 528 in 2000.