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Editor's
Note - Our thanks to Jeff Boutwell, Recreation Specialist,
Mid-Brazos Project/ Waco Lake, for his photos and information
on Kimball. We have included his letter as text for this town page.
I would like to make an addition to your Ghost town list. It is
the old town of Kimball, Texas located in Bosque County about 20
miles south of Cleburne and 15 miles north of Meridian on State
Highway 174.
It is located
on the Brazos River and is the location of one of the major
crossings of the river by the Chisholm Trail.
The town was established in 1853 by Judge John Kimball
from New York. He bought the property from Jacob DeCordova. The
town was plated by McLennan and Erath. It was a thriving town and
a center of commerce during the cattle drive years. It had a gin,
numerous stores, several churches, two schools and more saloons
than could be counted. The town's cemetery had over 600 burials.
It slowly died after the
Santa Fe Railroad chose to miss the town by three
miles for a narrower crossing of the river. The town existed until
about 1910 and had several residences left when the federal government
bought out the remaining people in 1947 for the construction
of Lake Whitney by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.
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