Kress

Kress, on U.S. Highway 87 in southern Swisher County, was originally named Wright, after a local rancher and preacher, when it was founded in 1890. It had a post office, a general store, and a school and was on the stage line from Canyon to Plainview. When the Pecos and Northern Texas Railway came through the county in 1906, the store and post office were moved two miles southwest to the present site and were named for another pioneer settler, George H. Kress. C. F. Sjogren, a local immigrant farmer and land broker, encouraged settlement of the area. In 1909 the local Commercial Club, headed by Sjogren's land company, published a booklet that advertised the town's advantages as a trade center and listed its population as close to 500. Although that figure may have been exaggerated, by that time Kress did have mercantile stores, drugstores, lumberyards, wagonyards, hotels, two banks, a telephone exchange, a telegraph office, and a railroad depot. The first school at Kress had opened in 1907. In 1915 the first garage and filling station was erected, a grain elevator was built, and a weekend rodeo was organized for local recreation. During the history of Kress, the location of the main highway through town has shifted at least twice, compelling the business district to shift likewise. By the late 1920s the town had electricity and natural gas utilities, and in 1941 a butane plant was established; it has since closed. In 1953 the town elected to incorporate with the mayor-council form of city government