IREDELL, TEXAS. Iredell is at the junction of Farm roads 927, 216, and 1238 and State Highway 6, forty-six miles northwest of Waco in northwestern Bosque County. It began in the late 1850s, when Ward Keeler and Ranse Walker settled in the vicinity and named the community after Keeler's son Ire. A post office opened in 1870. The settlement moved in 1880 from its original location near the Walker homestead to the south bank of the Bosque River near the Texas Central Railroad station. Later that year Iredell was destroyed by a flood and rebuilt on higher ground. In 1884 the population was estimated to be thirty, and by 1892 it had grown to 600. Iredell was a retail and service center for the surrounding countryside. In 1931 it had 570 residents and thirty businesses. In 1961 it had a population of 366. The recorded population in 1982 was 407. In 1990 it was 339. The population reached 360 in 2000.

BIBLIOGRAPHY: William C. Pool, A History of Bosque County (San Marcos, Texas: San Marcos Record Press, 1954).

Karen Yancy