PAYNE GAP, TEXAS. Payne Gap (Paynes Gap, Payne) was just off Farm Road 592 fifteen miles southeast of Goldthwaite in southeastern Mills County. It was named for Barzilla Payne, who established the first permanent settlement in the area in 1861. The community had a post office from 1888 to 1916 and, for a time, a general store and cotton gin. Payne Gap declined after the organization of Mills County in 1887. The 1936 county highway map showed a school, a church, a cemetery, and scattered dwellings at the townsite. In 1983 the church, the cemetery, a community hall, and several dwellings remained, but no population estimates were available.
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Flora Gatlin Bowles, A No Man's Land Becomes a County (Austin: Steck, 1958).
