BRISCOE, TEXAS. Briscoe, on Farm Road 1046 just off U.S. Highway 83 in northern Wheeler County, was platted by the Lone Star Townsite Company and named for J. B. Briscoe, an official of the Panhandle and Santa Fe Railway, in 1929. That same year A. V. Airington was granted in court a fifty-year telephone franchise for both Briscoe and nearby Allison. The Wiley Gas Company furnished the town its fuel, and Panhandle Power and Light brought in electricity. In 1930 the Briscoe post office opened. The Briscoe school district increased in size and enrollment during the 1930s, when it absorbed the Gageby schools. In 1939 Briscoe had six businesses and an estimated population of 150. In 1961 the population was estimated at 270. From 1974 to 1980 the estimated population was 210, and in 1984 Briscoe had four businesses. In 1990 and 2000 the population was 135.
BIBLIOGRAPHY: William Coy Perkins, A History of Wheeler County (M.A. thesis, University of Texas, 1938). Millie Jones Porter, Memory Cups of Panhandle Pioneers (Clarendon, Texas: Clarendon Press, 1945).
