Grays Prairie

Grays Prairie is a farming community near the junction of Farm roads 1388 and 148, three miles south of Kaufman in south central Kaufman County. The community developed during the late 1840s and early 1850s in the vicinity of Peede and was named for the Gray family, who arrived in the area during the late 1850s. Nicholas H. Gray had received a grant of 640 acres at the headwaters of nearby Bois d'Arc Creek in Kaufman County. Throughout the nineteenth century and into the twentieth century Grays Prairie was a community center for farmers. Around 1900 its population varied between roughly fifty and eighty. In 1936 its population was twenty, and from the 1940s to the 1960s the residents numbered around seventy-five. In the 1970s the town had a store and two churches. The population of Grays Prairie grew from 50 in 1972 to 171 in 1986 and 304 in 1991. In 2000 the population was 296.