MUNDAY, TEXAS. Munday is on the Burlington Northern line at the junction of U.S. Highway 277, State Highway 222, and Farm roads 1587 and 2811, in the region of southern Knox County known as Knox Prairie. The community dates from 1893, when a store was established there. The settlement was originally called Maud for a local resident, Maud Isbell, but was renamed for postmaster R. P. Munday when the first post office was established there in 1894. W. A. Earnest built a gin in 1900, and in 1903 West Munday merchants, separated by a thousand yards from East Munday, moved their buildings to the east. The Wichita Valley line provided service beginning in 1906, and that year Munday incorporated. It rapidly became the largest town in the county. By 1940 Munday had 1,545 residents and seventy businesses, including a gin, a cottonseed-oil mill, grain elevators, and a compress. Its population was 2,270 in 1950. Thereafter cotton processing remained significant, but Munday also became a center for vegetable processing, since irrigation encouraged local farmers to raise onions, potatoes, cucumbers, melons, and other produce. Fertilizers and insecticides were manufactured at Munday, and the town became a petroleum center for two counties. Texas A&M University opened a vegetable research center in Munday in 1971. The population of the community was 1,978 in 1960, 1,762 in 1970, 1,738 in 1980, and 1,600 in 1990. The chamber of commerce sponsors a Knox County vegetable festival each June. The population dropped slightly in 2000 to 1,527.
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Knox County History Committee, Knox County History (Haskell, Texas: Haskell Free Press, 1966). Kathleen E. and Clifton R. St. Clair, eds., Little Towns of Texas (Jacksonville, Texas: Jayroe Graphic Arts, 1982).
