TARPLEY, TEXAS. Tarpley is at the junction of Farm roads 462 and 470, on Williams Creek twelve miles southwest of Bandera in south central Bandera County. In 1878 a post office named Hondo Cañon opened on Williams Creek. In 1899 it was moved several miles south and renamed Tarpley after Tarpley Prickett, the son of postmaster John Prickett. That year the Buckner family began renting rooms in their home to travelers. By 1900 a store and a smithy were attached to the post office. In 1902 a school was built, and later a Baptist church was erected. Tarpley had a population estimated at twenty-five in 1925 and forty in 1984. In 1990 it was thirty. The population remained the same in 2000.

BIBLIOGRAPHY: J. Marvin Hunter, One Hundred Years in Bandera, 1853-1953 (Bandera, Texas: Hunter's Printing, 1953). Kathleen E. and Clifton R. St. Clair, eds., Little Towns of Texas (Jacksonville, Texas: Jayroe Graphic Arts, 1982).

Ann Graham Gaines