HALSELL, TEXAS. Halsell, ten miles southwest of Henrietta in west central Clay County, was established about 1900 and named for Harry H. Halsell, a rancher who came to the area in the late 1890s. A post office began operations locally in 1901; it closed in 1919. The townsite was moved a short distance in 1903 so that it lay on the route of the Red River and Southwestern line between Henrietta and Archer City. After 1900 the community apparently grew rapidly; one report estimates Halsell's population at 600 in the early 1900s. The discontinuation of the railroad in 1921 probably led to the community's decline. By the mid-1930s Halsell reported only thirty-six residents and one business. The discovery of oil in the area in the 1930s and 1940s seems to have had little effect upon the community, as its reported population remained at thirty-six through the mid-1960s. When Lake Arrowhead was built in western Clay County in 1965, the Halsell townsite was inundated.
BIBLIOGRAPHY: William Charles Taylor, A History of Clay County (Austin: Jenkins, 1972).
