KYOTE, TEXAS. Kyote is at the intersection of Farm Road 2504 and State Highway 173, near the Frio county line in west central Atascosa County. Its name was chosen in 1927 by William D. Rogers, the first postmaster, because of the numerous coyotes in the area. He varied the spelling of coyote because there was already a post office in Texas by that name, although it, too, was misspelled (as Cayote). During the 1930s the town had a business, a school, and a population of ten. Its post office closed in 1935. The population of Kyote increased in the late 1940s and reached a high of fifty shortly after oil was discovered there in 1951. From the late 1960s to 1990 its population was reported as twenty-five. A 1964 map showed Kyote as a few scattered dwellings at the northern edge of the Kyote oilfield. The 1984 county highway map named the community but did not show any structures at the site. In 2000 the population was thirty-four.

BIBLIOGRAPHY: Margaret G. Clover, The Place Names of Atascosa County (M.A. thesis, University of Texas, 1952).

Linda Peterson