WESTOVER, TEXAS. Westover, on State Highway 114 sixteen miles southeast of Seymour in southeastern Baylor County, was founded in 1910 with the construction of the Gulf, Texas and Western Railroad. It was named by landowner J. W. Stevens, who gave the town his wife's maiden name. Westover had a school in 1913, and for a time in the 1920s it had an independent school district with as many as 175 pupils in its six-room building. A post office opened in 1910 and operated until about 1957. Westover has survived as a small market center for the local agricultural area. The population was estimated at ninety in 1949 but decreased to sixty-one by 1970. In 1990 it was fifty-eight. By 2000 the population had dropped to eighteen.

BIBLIOGRAPHY: Baylor Banner (Golden Jubilee Edition, September 5, 1929). Baylor County Historical Society, Salt Pork to Sirloin, Vol. 1: The History of Baylor County, Texas, from 1879 to 1930 (Quanah, Texas: Nortex, 1972); Vol. 2: The History of Baylor County, Texas, from 1878 to Present (1977).

William R. Hunt