Name/Title
Fife, Texas [Cover]Description
Cover from "Mitchell & Long / FIFE, TEX." addressed to "L.L. Shield / Santa Anna / Tex." Postmarked "FIFE / JAN 6 1903 / TEX."Context
Fife is on Elm Creek at the intersection of U.S. Highway 283 and Farm Road 765, eighteen miles north of Brady in northern McCulloch County. Robert Kay Finlay's mother named the site in 1882 in remembrance of her native Fifeshire, Scotland. A school was established at Fife in 1890 with Henry H. Smith as teacher. A post office opened in 1902, with this cover mailed out in its first year. In 1914 Fife had two general stores, a cotton gin, and 200 residents. By the late 1940s the population had fallen to fifty, and the school had been consolidated with the Lohn district. The population was thirty-two in 1990 and again in 2000.