SYLVESTER, TEXAS (Fisher County). Sylvester, at the junction of Farm roads 57 and 1085, ten miles southeast of Roby in east central Fisher County, was laid out in 1903 by the Compere brothers of Abilene. The Comperes bought part of the AJ Ranch for a new town on the survey of the Kansas City, Mexico and Orient Railway and named it for W. W. Sylvester, promotion manager of the railroad. The rails reached Sylvester in 1905, and the town soon had a post office, a bank, a gin, stores, and other businesses. The population reached over 600 in 1909; the community was incorporated in 1927. By 1940, because of dwindling farm population, Sylvester had declined to 405 people and eleven businesses. Competition from nearby towns resulted in further losses of businesses and residents. In 1980 through 2000 the population was seventy-nine.

BIBLIOGRAPHY: Lora Blount, A Short History of Fisher County (M.A. thesis, Hardin-Simmons University, 1947). E. L. Yeats and E. H. Shelton, History of Fisher County (n.p.: Feather, 1971).