CAMBRIDGE, TEXAS. Cambridge, three miles northeast of Henrietta, was once the principal community and retail center for Clay County. The settlement developed in the early 1870s, and in 1875 it received postal service. A year later the United States Army opened a telegraph office there, and three years later St. Mary's Catholic Church was built. In July 1882 the tracks of the Fort Worth and Denver Railway were extended through Henrietta, which became the county seat. Many Cambridge residents and businesses moved to Henrietta, and the Cambridge post office closed. Soon a second railroad, the Missouri, Kansas and Texas, also bypassed Cambridge for Henrietta, and Cambridge's few remaining residents left. In 1991 only a cemetery remained at the townsite.

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

David Minor