SEVEN SISTERS, TEXAS. Seven Sisters, on Farm Road 2359 near the McMullen county line ten miles northeast of Freer in northern Duval County, has followed the fortunes of the oil and gas industry. It was named for the nearby Seven Sisters oilfield, which it served as a supply point. The community grew quickly after the first gusher was brought in on May 13, 1935. Two years later prospectors again struck oil. By 1940 Seven Sisters had a post office, two or three stores, and a population estimated at forty. The name of the community was translated from Spanish Siete Hermanas and refers either to seven small mounds in the area or, more likely, to the seven daughters of an important local landowner, Refugio Serna. According to one account, Serna maintained an interest in the oilfield through the 1960s, when four new wells were discovered. Despite the continued oil production, several businesses shut down in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Although the population of Seven Sisters remained sixty from 1950 through 2000, the post office had closed by 1970.

BIBLIOGRAPHY: Dallas Morning News, August 25, 1965, June 7, 1970. Dorothy Abbott McCoy, Oil, Mud, and Guts (Brownsville, Texas, 1977). Fred Tarpley, 1001 Texas Place Names (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1980).

Sylvia Whitman