TELEGRAPH, TEXAS. Telegraph is on U.S. Highway 377 thirteen miles southwest of Junction in southwestern Kimble County. Ranches in the area near Telegraph by the 1890s included those of O. B. Fleming and Thomas C. Taylor. A post office was established there in 1900 with Ruth Holms as postmistress. Rancher Thomas C. Taylor became postmaster in 1902. During the 1920s Telegraph was a popular vacation spot for campers, hunters, and fishermen. In 1925 the community had a resident population of twenty-five, a tourist park, a gas station, and a post office-general store. The estimated population remained stable for the next forty years, increasing briefly to fifty-six in 1966 but declining to thirty-one in 1970 and eleven in 1974. Telegraph was named for the telegraph poles cut to support communication lines to early United States Army forts just east of the town in Telegraph Canyon, which was once part of Governor Coke R. Stevenson's ranch. In 1990 the population was reported as three. The population remained the same in 2000.
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Coke R. Stephenson, Jr., "Kimble County History Tells of Pioneer Struggles," Frontier Times, September 1930. Frederica Burt Wyatt, "Kimble County," Stalkin Kin, May 1976.
