MARKLEY, TEXAS. Markley, at the intersection of State Highway 16 and Farm Road 1769, in extreme northeastern Young County, was called Plum Grove by its founders in 1888. That year a post office named Manlee was established there with Steve Munderbeck as postmaster. A few years later the name was changed to honor Gen. A. C. Markley, a commander of western military posts, who settled in Young County. The community boomed after oil was discovered in 1926 and then it declined as production slowed. Its population was reported as fifty in 1940. By the late 1960s the post office had been closed. The population of Markley was estimated at thirty-one in 1980 and 1990. The population grew to fifty in 2000.
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Carrie J. Crouch, Young County: History and Biography (Dallas: Dealey and Love, 1937; rev. ed., A History of Young County, Texas, Austin: Texas State Historical Association, 1956).
