VANCOURT, TEXAS. Vancourt is a farming and ranching community on U.S. Highway 87 twenty miles southeast of San Angelo in Tom Green County. In 1908 the community postmaster estimated the Vancourt population as 125; the 1980 federal census listed the same figure. The first business at the community was a stage stop run by William C. and Ida Dickey 1½ miles east of the present site of Vancourt. W. S. Kelly, establishing a mail route for the El Paso Mail Company, applied for the first post office. He named it in honor of his new bride, Mary Ann Van Court. In 1908 Calvin J. York, Jr., built a general store on the north side of the highway. Until it closed in the 1970s, it remained the only store in the community. The White Swan School, originally 1½ miles northwest of Vancourt, was moved to the community in 1907, on the south side of U.S. Highway 87. The Works Progress Administration (see WORK PROJECTS ADMINISTRATION) in 1937 built a new brick schoolhouse that was used until 1940. A cotton gin had been built in the 1920s west of the school site; the gin continued to operate in the same location in 1988. At that time, businesses in the area near the townsite included another cotton gin, a mill, and two grain-elevator companies. The population of Vancourt was still reported as 125 through 2000.

Betty Jane Smith