JESTER, TEXAS. Jester is eleven miles southwest of Corsicana in west central Navarro County. It was established as a stop on the St. Louis and Southwestern Railway just after the railroad built through the area in the 1880s. The community was originally known as Switch, but when a post office opened there in 1899 the name was changed to Jester, after George Taylor Jester, a resident of Corsicana who served as lieutenant governor around that time. A school was in operation there by 1900, and in 1906 it had an enrollment of forty-seven. The Jester post office closed in 1909, reopened in 1923, and closed again sometime after 1930. In the mid-1930s Jester reported a population of ten and had a store, a church, and a few houses. After World War II its store and church closed, and its school was consolidated with that of Purdon. By the mid-1960s Jester was no longer shown on highway maps of the area. In 1990 only a few scattered houses remained there.
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Annie Carpenter Love, History of Navarro County (Dallas: Southwestern, 1933). Wyvonne Putman, comp., Navarro County History (5 vols., Quanah, Texas: Nortex, 1975-84). Alva Taylor, History and Photographs of Corsicana and Navarro County (Corsicana, Texas, 1959; rev. ed., Navarro County History and Photographs, Corsicana, 1962).
