BLUFF DALE, TEXAS. Bluff Dale, on U.S. Highway 377 and the North Paluxy River in northeastern Erath County, was originally called Bluff Spring by the pioneers who settled near the site's artesian wells. Bluff Dale became the name when the post office was granted in 1877. When the Fort Worth and Rio Grande Railway was constructed in 1889, Jack Glenn donated land for a new townsite on the line a short distance to the east. The relocated town prospered for the next two decades and was incorporated in 1908. By 1915 it had its own bank, as well as a newspaper, the Bluff Dale Sun. Bluff Dale reported 680 residents in 1936, 500 in 1940, and 123 in 1980. By 1989, however, the population had grown to 300. By that year the school had expanded to more than seventy students from only twenty in 1983 and had reinstituted competitive sports. In 1989 the town also had three churches, a volunteer fire department, a Study and Garden Club, a beautification committee, and five historical markers. By 2000 the population had dropped to 123.

BIBLIOGRAPHY: Vallie Eoff, A History of Erath County, Texas (M.A. thesis, University of Texas, 1937).

Cathey Yarbrough Sims