AUBREY, TEXAS. Aubrey is in the Cross Timbersqv region twelve miles northeast of Denton and forty miles north of Dallas in northeastern Denton County. The site was originally named Onega (Ornega, Ornego) when the Texas and Pacific Railway built a section house there in 1881. The same year the name Aubrey was drawn from a hat to replace the name Onega, which was not popular, and a charter for a post office, to be operated in the railroad depot, was granted. Although the Key Schoolhouse settlement, established in 1858 by Dr. George Key, was only about a mile from what became the downtown part of Aubrey, Lemual Noah Edwards, a Civil Warqv veteran from Alabama, is given credit for founding the town. He built the town's second house, a large, imposing, two-story structure, of lumber hauled from Jefferson in 1867. After the first businesses, east of the railroad tracks, burned in 1887, the town was rebuilt west of the tracks, partially on land donated by Edwards. He also helped the town grow by giving each of his ten children land on which to build a home as a wedding present. By 1920 Aubrey had more than thirty businesses and a population of 700. The automobile, the boll weevil,qv and the Great Depressionqv contributed to the decline of the population over the next several years. By the 1980s peanuts had replaced cotton as the number-one crop; an annual average of 3,000 tons is processed in the local drying plant. The sandy, fertile land and the moderate climate have attracted many horse ranchers to the area, which, according to some, is becoming the "horse capital" of Texas. Other farm products include cattle, hay, fruits, and vegetables. A number of cabinet shops are also located in the area. In 1980 Aubrey had a population of 948. In 1986 Ray Roberts Dam was completed nearby on the Elm Fork of the Trinity River. In 1990 Aubrey had a population of 1,138. By 2000 the population was 1,500.
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Edward Franklin Bates, History and Reminiscences of Denton County (Denton, Texas: McNitzky Printing, 1918; rpt., Denton: Terrill Wheeler Printing, 1976). Mary Jo Cowling, Geography of Denton County (Dallas: Banks, Upshaw, 1936).
Jackie Balthrop Fuller
