WELCH, TEXAS. Welch is at the junction of State highways 137 and 83 and Farm roads 829 and 2053, ten miles northeast of Cedar Lake and eighteen miles northwest of Lamesa in northwestern Dawson County. It started in 1924 when farmers near Lou donated land for a gin, and Charley Holden built a grocery store. In 1934 both the Lou and Pride post offices were closed and absorbed by the new post office at Welch, previously called Shack Town. Welch has elementary and high schools, churches, several stores, and gins serving the cotton-raising community. The population was 185 in 1949 and 110 in 1980 through 2000.

BIBLIOGRAPHY: Mathew Clay Lindsey, The Trail of Years in Dawson County (Fort Worth: Wallace, 1958?). Kathleen E. and Clifton R. St. Clair, eds., Little Towns of Texas (Jacksonville, Texas: Jayroe Graphic Arts, 1982).

William R. Hunt