EDITH, TEXAS. Edith was on what is now State Highway 158 south of E. V. Spence Reservoir nine miles west of Robert Lee in west central Coke County. The community began during the 1880s when cattlemen and stock-farming settlers came into the area, and it grew to include a store, gin, blacksmith shop, church, and lodge hall. A post office was established there on February 14, 1890, and named for Edith Bonsall of Ballinger. Three rural schools were located in the area. An early recreation spot near the community was Dripping Springs, where seeping springs along canyon walls produced a profusion of ferns. Economic changes in the twentieth century and the nearness of the county seat, Robert Lee, kept the community from growing. In the 1950s and 1960s the settlement reported one business and a population of twenty-five. Its post office closed in 1955. By the 1970s the town was abandoned. County maps for the 1980s show only the Edith cemetery near Salt Creek within a mile of E. V. Spence Reservoir.

BIBLIOGRAPHY: Jewell G. Pritchett, From the Top of Old Hayrick: A Narrative History of Coke County (Abilene, Texas: Pritchett, 1980).

Charles G. Davis