BUFFALO SPRINGS, TEXAS (Clay County). Buffalo Springs is on Farm Road 3077 fifteen miles south of Henrietta in south central Clay County. Settlement of the area began in 1864, when twenty-five families constructed an outpost and attempted to establish a farming community. The settlers, under persistent Indian attacks and unable to survive a lengthy drought, abandoned the site, which remained uninhabited until 1878, when brothers C. O. and J. Q. Burnett settled about three-quarters of a mile from the ruins of the outpost. The community that developed, named for nearby Buffalo Creek, received postal service that year. By the mid-1890s Buffalo Springs had 200 residents, several stores, and two cotton gins; farming and stockraising were its residents' principal occupations. The reported population fell to 125 in 1914 and 115 by the mid-1920s. In the 1930s Buffalo Springs had a school, two churches, and a variety of small businesses. Its post office was discontinued in 1954, and its population fell from 100 in the 1950s to 60 by the mid-1960s and 51 in 2000.

BIBLIOGRAPHY: William Charles Taylor, A History of Clay County (Austin: Jenkins, 1972).

David Minor