FARMER, TEXAS (Young County). Farmer is near the junction of Farm roads 1769 and 2652, eight miles northwest of Loving and sixteen miles east of Olney in northeast Young County. The community, originally called Brush or Brushy, was renamed in honor of Rev. William H. Farmer, who settled in the area in 1877. He built a store there, and a post office was opened in it on August 7, 1878. John Casey, a former ferry operator, added a second store, and a large Methodist church was built at the settlement in 1889. By 1892 Farmer had 125 residents and challenged Graham for area prominence. Businesses in the community included the Farmer general store and two blacksmith shops, as well as a hotel, barbershop, drugstore, meat market, and weekly newspaper, the Farmer Headlight. The town also had Methodist, Baptist, and Presbyterian congregations and a town band. Farmer declined quickly when the Gulf, Texas and Western Railroad, running from Jacksboro to Olney in the early 1900s, bypassed the town to the south. The Farmer post office was moved to Jean on January 15, 1921. During the 1930s and 1940s Farmer had about fifty residents. County maps for the 1980s showed only a rural settlement and nearby cemetery at the site.
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Carrie J. Crouch, Young County: History and Biography (Dallas: Dealey and Love, 1937; rev. ed., A History of Young County, Texas, Austin: Texas State Historical Association, 1956).
