COMYN, TEXAS. Comyn, on Farm Road 1496 in eastern Comanche County, was settled about 1875. The community was first called Theney for W. F. Matheney, who operated a trading post. In 1881, when the Texas Central Railroad built through the town and opened a depot there, the community's name was changed to Comyn, for M. T. Comyn, the construction foreman of the railroad; the local school, however, was still called Theney. In 1909 a post office was established in Comyn. The town also had a lumberyard, a blacksmith shop, a cotton gin, a number of stores, and a Woodmen of the World lodge. In 1918 the Humble Pipe Line Company built a pipeline connecting Comyn with the Humble company's terminal at Webster. The company also began building a tank farm, and a large tent city sprang up at the site, but construction ceased in 1919 and the people moved on. Between 1924 and 1926 the Humble Pipe Line Company extended the Comyn pipeline west to Kempner and extended the trunk line between Comyn and Webster. A large school complex was built in Comyn in 1924. Decreasing oil production in West Texas led to Comyn's decline. Low attendance forced its school to close in 1952, and its post office closed in the late 1950s. Comyn's estimated population in 1939 was thirty and in 1974 and 1990 was twenty-seven. The population was forty in 2000. In 1976 the town had a Baptist church, a Humble Oil Company (later Exxon Company, U.S.A.) office, and the Shell Peanut Company. By 1980 most businesses had moved out of the community, although the oil company still had an office and pipeline pumping station there.

BIBLIOGRAPHY: T. Lindsay Baker, Ghost Towns of Texas (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1986).

Tracey L. Compton