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History in a Pecan
Shell
James Shaw is credited as being one of the first settlers in
the area, arriving in 1837. Shaw, as a Texas Revolutionary War veteran was claiming
a military land grant. A post office opened under the name String Prairie
(not to be confused with the community in Caldwell
County) in 1848 with Shaw serving as postmaster.
Shaw, a surveyor
by trade, also served as the local schoolteacher and state legislator. In 1850
the name of the community was changed to Lexington, after the Massachusetts town
prominent in the American Revolution.
The population was depleted during
the Civil War but was replenished after the war, when twenty-one Mississippi families
arrived by wagon, most of them settling in Lexington or nearby communities.
Lexington’s population was estimated at 250 by 1884, doubling to over 500 shortly
after the arrival of the San Antonio and Aransas Pass Railroad in 1890. Lexington
reached 1,000 residents in the late 1920s but it dropped to just over 500 during
the Great Depression.
In the 1950s it had increased to 600. The town reported
901 for the 1980 census and reached new heights in 1989 when 1,284 people were
enumerated. The 1990 population figure of 953 grew to 1,178 by 2000.
Area
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