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Texas Ghost
Town
BRIDGETOWN, TEXASWichita County,
Texas Panhandle/North Central Texas
17 miles NW of Wichita
Falls
Off highway 240 near the Red River
Population:
0
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History
in a Pecan Shell
The town had no 19th Century history and was born with the boom of
the Burkburnett oil field around 1920. The town was named after it’s
most distinguishing landmark - a one mile bridge over the Red River.
The toll bridge connected Wichita County, Texas with Tillman County,
Oklahoma.
Although the population was transient, some permanent structures were
constructed. The town had a post office from 1920 until sometime in
the 1930s.
Bridgetown’s population went from a peak of 10,000 to a mere 100 persons
in the mid 1920s.
Bridgetown’s last population figures were given as eighty (in the
late 1940s).
Bridgetown’s inclusion in our town pages was suggested by Mr. Gaylon
White of Wichita Falls, who wrote in July of 2004: “During the late
1970s I often crossed over the rundown and almost dismantled foot
bridge. To do so, one had to walk on cables only at times. Not long
into the 1980s, the bridge vanished in a huge flood and nothing is
left today of Bridgetown except for some concrete foundations here
and there.” Gaylon White |
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