JIBA, TEXAS. Jiba is near U.S. Highway 175 five miles south of Kaufman in central Kaufman County. The name is Spanish for "hump" and is presumed to refer to a small hill on the route of the railroad. In the late 1800s the community's post office was established and named Jessie. During this time the settlement became a stop on the Texas and New Orleans Railroad. In 1900 the town's name was changed to Green, perhaps in honor of Edward H. R. Green, an owner of the Texas Midland Railroad. In 1905 the community's name became Jiba. Its post office stayed in operation until 1927, when local mail was routed to Kaufman. Jiba had its own school until its students were transferred to Kaufman in 1949. The community once had a cotton gin, a two-story Woodman hall with a store on the ground floor, a second store, which housed the post office, and the Miller's Chapel Presbyterian Church. The community's population was seventy-five in 1914, rose to 100 by 1925, and was reported at that level until 1968, when it fell to thirty. Only the Jiba community center remained in 1985.

Jack Stoltz