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POTOSI, TEXAS. Potosi is on Farm Road 1750 nine miles southeast of Abilene in eastern Taylor County. Its site was settled by the Pollard family in the 1870s. A Southern Methodist church was built in 1880, burned down in 1884, and was rebuilt. School was held in the church from 1891 until a one-room schoolhouse was built in 1897. In 1893 R. A. Pollard applied for a post office and chose the name Potosi, after the town in Mexico. By 1896 Potosi had an estimated 100 inhabitants, and in 1902 the Potosi school had ninety-three pupils and one teacher. The Baptist church of nearby Lytle Cove moved to Potosi in 1904, and in 1914 the community had a general store, two blacksmith shops, a cotton gin, and a dry-goods store. By 1940 Potosi consisted of eighty residents, a school, a church, four businesses, and a number of dwellings. Its population fell to twenty in the 1950s, then rose to 149 in 1968. In 1984 Potosi had two churches, a number of dwellings, a community center, and a church. It grew dramatically in the late 1980s and reported a population of 1,441 by 1992.

BIBLIOGRAPHY: Juanita Daniel Zachry, A History of Rural Taylor County (Burnet, Texas: Nortex, 1980). Juanita Zachry, Potosi, the First One Hundred Years (Abilene, Texas, 1967).

Mark Odintz

The following, adapted from the Chicago Manual of Style, 15th edition, is the preferred citation for this article.

Handbook of Texas Online, s.v. "," http://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/PP/hlp43.html (accessed May 15, 2008).

(NOTE: "s.v." stands for sub verbo, "under the word.")

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Last Updated: January 18, 2008
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