ALEDO, TEXAS. Aledo is on Farm Road 2376 fifteen miles west of Fort Worth in east central Parker County. The first settlers in the area were from Georgia. They called the place Parker's Station. The name, however, caused confusion for postal authorities, and after the tracks of the Texas and Pacific Railway were laid nearby and businesses were built close to the rail line, a Texas and Pacific official suggested that the new site be named after his hometown, Aledo, Illinois. An Aledo post office was opened in 1882. By the mid-1880s the settlement had an estimated 150 residents and had become a shipping point for area farmers. The town's steam cotton gin, corn mill, bank, and twenty-one businesses established Aledo as a retail center for eastern Parker County by 1915. The population grew to 400 by the early 1920s. In 1963 the community was incorporated. Beginning in the mid-1970s the town grew rapidly as a result of the growth of nearby Fort Worth. In 1980 it had an estimated 1,027 residents and twenty-three businesses. In 1990 the population was 1,169.

BIBLIOGRAPHY: Gustavus Adolphus Holland, History of Parker County and the Double Log Cabin (Weatherford, Texas: Herald, 1931; rpt. 1937). Kathleen E. and Clifton R. St. Clair, eds., Little Towns of Texas (Jacksonville, Texas: Jayroe Graphic Arts, 1982).

David Minor