FILES VALLEY, TEXAS. Files Valley, or Files, was on Farm Road 66 and Valley Branch fourteen miles northeast of Hillsboro in northeastern Hill County. Originally the community was called Eureka Valley, but it was renamed on November 19, 1879, for David Sidney Files, who built the first house at the site in 1846. Many artesian wells in the area supplied soft but slightly sulfurous water. The community received a post office with the name Files in 1880 and by 1890 had a population of fifty, a church, a district school, a general store, a steam cotton gin, blacksmiths, carpenters, and physicians. In 1905 the school had sixty-one pupils. The railroads bypassed the community, however. In 1906 the Southwestern Home and School for Orphans was founded in Files. It remained into the 1980s, when it was known as the Presbyterian Children's Home. In 1907 the post office was withdrawn from the community. In the 1930s Files had a population of 100 and three businesses. The population remained at this level until the 1970s, when it dropped to fifty and no businesses remained. Afterward the community has been called Files Valley rather than Files. In 1990 Files Valley remained on maps as a community, and the population was still fifty. A cemetery, a church, and the Presbyterian Children's Home were still there. The population remained at fifty in 2000.
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Hill County Historical Commission, A History of Hill County, Texas, 1853–1980 (Waco: Texian, 1980).
