KELLY, TEXAS (Uvalde County). Kelly, also known as Bear Creek, was located on Bear Creek (formerly Blanket Creek) four miles northeast of Concan in north central Uvalde County. It began around 1874 with the establishment of a ranch by pioneer A. B. Kelly, for whom the community was named. The subsequent arrival of ranchers and farmers to the area prompted Kelly to donate land for a school. People from the surrounding ranches and farms attended school, worshiped, and voted in the all-purpose schoolhouse. Ranchers in the area raised cattle and hogs; farmers raised pecans, corn, and cotton. In 1907 the community had a school with twenty-one students and one teacher; a new school building was built in 1915. By 1946 the community consisted of Bear Creek School and two residences. Although Kelly had been abandoned by the mid-1980s, evidence of a Bear Creek Cemetery and the Kelly ranch remained.
BIBLIOGRAPHY: A Proud Heritage: A History of Uvalde County (Uvalde, Texas: El Progreso Club, 1975).
