KEY, TEXAS. Key is at the junction of U.S. Highway 180 and Farm Road 178, twelve miles east of Lamesa in east central Dawson County. It had a population of ten and three businesses in 1930. The Key Baptist Church was consolidated with the Pioneer Bethany and Mount Olive churches in 1914. After a church fire in 1923 part of the church community moved three miles south to build the Midway Baptist Church, while the remaining congregation built a new church at Key, which was expanded in 1948. In 1947 Key had a school, a church, five businesses, and seventy-five people. The population was seventy-five in 1950 and forty in 1980. In 1990 it was reported as twenty. The population remained the same in 2000.

BIBLIOGRAPHY: Mathew Clay Lindsey, The Trail of Years in Dawson County (Fort Worth: Wallace, 1958?).

William R. Hunt