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History in
a Pecan Shell
The town began life in 1912 as an investment of three partners who
bought 1,000 acres of land. The plan was to resell it to farmers,
but after a few parcels were sold, the partners took the unsold acreage
of the market and went into the oil exploration business.
They pooled $50,000 and registered the K-M-A Oil Company.
As wells started coming in, a town developed around the rigs. The
town took the name of the oil company, which had been shortened to
just K-M-A. It was called Kemp City (after investor Frank Kemp) in
the late 1920s.
The oil kept the Great Depression at bay and by 1938 there were over
100 producing wells. It was about this time that the town needed a
new name since a Kemp already existed.
Postal authorities rejected the application with the three initials
K-M-A so by adding a couple of more letters the name became Kamay.
For sometime the community retained the name Kemp City. In the late
1940s Kamay had a population of 700 – a figure it kept through the
mid 1950s.
From the late 1950s to the present the number of residents has been
reported as 642. |
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