QUAIL, TEXAS. Quail, at the intersection of State Highway 203 and Farm Road 1574, in central Collingsworth County, was named because of the abundance of quail in the vicinity. The first families to settle this area were those of the brothers W. I. and T. S. Atkinson, who established their dugout homesteads in November 1890 and became the first to grow cotton in the county. A post office was established in 1902 with Sam Wilson as postmaster, and the first school building had been erected by 1904, when Greer Powell started a cotton gin in Quail. That year the first store was opened, and a telephone wire was strung on a barbed wire fence to connect Quail with Wellington. By 1909 the Baptist and Methodist churches had established congregations, with the Church of Christ following several years later. In 1910 Wade Arnold began publication of the Quail Feather, and Dr. Ed Beck opened the Quail Mercantile Company. A new $17,000 school building was completed in 1927 and enlarged as a consolidated school in 1935. In 1930 Quail had fifteen businesses and a population of 300. The population decreased to 250 in 1940, 200 in 1960, and ninety-five in 1970. By 1984 Quail had a gin, a grain elevator, four businesses, and a population of ninety-two. In 1990 the population was still ninety-two. The population dropped to thirty-three in 2000.
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Clyde Chestnut Brown, A Survey History of Collingsworth County, Texas (M.A. thesis, University of Colorado, 1934 A History of Collingsworth County and Other Stories (Wellington, Texas: Leader Printing, 1925 Kathleen E. and Clifton R. St. Clair, eds., Little Towns of Texas (Jacksonville, Texas: Jayroe Graphic Arts, 1982).
