CEGO, TEXAS. Cego is on Farm Road 1950 seven miles southwest of Chilton in western Falls County. When it was founded in the early 1880s by a group of German-American farmers, the community was known as Pleasant Valley. A few years later, when residents applied to the postal department for a star route, the name of the town had to be changed because a Pleasant Valley, Texas, already existed. The name Cego was chosen in honor of a cotton picker who had worked on several of the local farms. The Cego post office was granted in 1895; it was discontinued ten years later, and mail for the community was sent to Eddy.

The Pleasant Valley school began serving the district in 1885 and continued to operated under that name until after 1900. In 1904 it had two teachers and 149 students. The population of Cego proper was thirty-five in 1910. Two churches, a school, and several businesses marked the community on county highway maps in 1948, and the number of residents was estimated at 200. The school at Cego was consolidated with the Chilton Independent School District in 1949. Although the population of Cego was listed as ninety-eight in the 1970s and 1980s, local residents maintained that the actual number was closer to fifty. In 2000 the population was forty-two.

BIBLIOGRAPHY: Vertical File, Texas Collection, Baylor University.

Vivian Elizabeth Smyrl