DEAN, TX (CLAY COUNTY)

DEAN, TEXAS (Clay County). Dean is on State Highway 79 fifteen miles northwest of Henrietta in northwest Clay County. The settlement began as a cattle-shipping station when the Wichita Falls and Oklahoma Railway selected the site as a railroad switch in 1904–05. As a community developed the settlers named the location Dean in honor of Callaway Dean, one of the pioneer ranchers of the county. A little later the residents began to refer to the location as Dean-Dale in recognition of James E. Dale, the founder of the 13,000-acre Dale Ranch, established in 1896. The population of Dean climbed from a reported twenty-five in 1947 to 223 in 1988. In 1990 it was 277 and in 2000 it was 341.