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History in
a Pecan Shell
Settlement dates from the 1840s. The town didn’t emerge as a community
until the arrival of the Missouri, Kansas and Texas Railroad in
1881. The town was granted a post office later that year.
The town was
known as Alba, although some sources say the depot and school went
by the variation of Albia. There are two versions of how the name
came about. One states it was named after the son of a railroad
official and the other says the name was meant to convey that the
town was to be for whites only (Alba is Latin for white).
In 1882 the
town was platted and two years later there was a population of 50.
By the mid 1890s it had grown to 300 and had a school educating
134 pupils.
Lignite coal
was discovered around the turn of the 20th Century and within a
few years The Texas Short Line Railroad carried coal to Grand
Saline.
Five area mines
were taking 40,000 tons of coal a month out of the region in 1911
and the town was prospering with 1,500 residents.
In 1914 the
town had acquired a telephone connection and a water system. From
a population estimated at between 1,600 and 2,000 in the late 1920s,
it fell to a mere 662 with the arrival of the Great Depression.
An oil discovery in the late 1940s brought renewed economic hope,
but the population dropped 545 and then declined even further in
the late 1960s when it reached a low of 408 residents.
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