CAREY, TEXAS. Carey is on U.S. Highway 287 eight miles northwest of Childress in Childress County. It was originally named Talulah, after Talulah Collier, who taught the first school there in 1888. A post office was established there in 1896. In 1898, however, the Fort Worth and Denver City Railway renamed the town after Dan Carey, building foreman of the road, whose land claim was nearby. In 1940 Carey had a post office, a school, a cotton gin, three churches, and a general store. The population comprised twenty-five families. In 1980 Carey reported a population of fifty-seven, a rural store, and a post office. In the 1960s its school district was merged with that of Childress. In 1990 and 2000 the population was sixty.

BIBLIOGRAPHY: Paul Ord, ed., They Followed the Rails: In Retrospect, A History of Childress County (Childress, Texas: Childress Reporter, 1970). Fred Tarpley, 1001 Texas Place Names (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1980).

H. Allen Anderson