Kamay

Kamay, also known as Kemp City, is on State Highway 258 twelve miles southwest of Wichita Falls in southwestern Wichita County. The settlement developed in 1912, when Joseph A. Kemp of Wichita Falls, W. Munger of Dallas, and Reese S. Allen of Electra formed a land company that purchased 1,000 acres of Wichita River valley land for resale. Though some of the land was indeed sold to farmers, by 1920 the investors, spurred by earlier discoveries in Wichita County, had turned their attention to oil exploration. With an investment of $50,000 they established the K-M-A Oil Company, its name formed from the first letter of each of the three principals' last names. Several producing wells were drilled, and a community developed there. The town's name, originally the surnames of the three investors, was shortened to K-M-A, and by 1928 had become Kemp City. The original wells stopped producing during the 1930s, but new, deeper wells were drilled successfully, and by 1938 more than 100 were operating in and around Kemp City. In addition, three natural gas-processing plants were located there. By the late 1930s the community's name had again been changed; Texas already had a post office operating under the name Kemp, and using the initials K-M-A as the community's name was also deemed unacceptable. The name Kamay solved the problem of a permanent name for the community, though the name Kemp City remained in use as well. Though oil production slowed after the 1930s, the community had by then become firmly established. By the late 1940s Kamay had twenty-one rated businesses and a population of 700; its population continued to be reported at that level through the mid-1950s, when the community had twenty-seven rated businesses. From the late 1950s to 1990 Kamay reported a population of 642. It had thirteen rated businesses in 1990. The population remained the same in 2000 with seven businesses.