KENT, TEXAS. Kent is at the intersection of Interstate Highway 10, U.S. Highway 80, State Highway 118, and Farm Road 2424, on the Missouri Pacific Railroad thirty-six miles east of Van Horn in southeastern Culberson County. It was founded before 1892 and was originally known as Antelope because of the large numbers of those animals found there. A post office was established in Kent in 1892 but was never in operation. A second post office opened the following year with John Charles Rickli as postmaster. In 1896 two livestock businesses operated in Kent. By 1914 the town had four cattle breeders, a general store, and an estimated population of twenty-five. For four decades beginning in 1924 the estimated population was fifty. The post office was closed in 1960 and the Kent school in 1961. In the late 1960s Kent had a population of sixty-five and four businesses. By the mid-1970s the estimated population had fallen to sixty, where it remained through 2000, when the town had six businesses.
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Rosa Lee Wylie, History of Van Horn and Culberson County (Hereford, Texas: Pioneer, 1973).
