ALGERITA, TEXAS. Algerita is on U.S. Highway 190 about 7½ miles west of San Saba in central San Saba County. In 1885 Charles Cadwaleder Yarborough opened a general store and post office near Richland Creek four miles north of the present site and called it Algerita after the local algerita (agarita) shrub. The post office was closed in 1890. In 1907 the Gulf, Colorado and Santa Fe Railway constructed a line several miles from town, and the settlement gradually moved to its present location next to the railroad. Walter Thomas established a post office at the new townsite in 1914, but the community declined after the railroad property was removed because ranchers west of town refused to open cattle lanes across their land. The population fell to twenty by 1925 but increased to sixty by 1949, when the community had a church, a school, and a combination filling station and store. The population was twenty-five in 1952 and was estimated at forty-eight in 2000.
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Alma Ward Hamrick, The Call of the San Saba: A History of San Saba County (San Antonio: Naylor, 1941; 2d ed., Austin: Jenkins, 1969). San Saba County History (San Saba, Texas: San Saba County Historical Commission, 1983).
