LAMKIN, TEXAS. Lamkin, on State Highway 36 twenty-four miles southeast of Comanche in southeastern Comanche County, was named for George Lamkin, who donated the land for the town. By 1884 Lamkin had a post office, and by 1890 its population of twenty-five was also served by a general store. The settlement was first located on the Leon River until a flood in 1908. It was then moved one-half mile north to its present site. Around 1913 Lamkin was served by the St. Louis Southwestern Railway, and by 1914 it had three general stores, a drugstore, a blacksmith shop, and a cotton gin. A fire in 1922 destroyed most of the businesses in Lamkin, and the town never really recovered. It had a population of 300 in 1929 but declined steadily until stabilizing at eighty-eight from the 1970s through 2000.

BIBLIOGRAPHY: Comanche County Bicentennial Committee, Patchwork of Memories: Historical Sketches of Comanche County, Texas (Brownwood, Texas: Banner Printing, 1976). S. G. Reed, A History of the Texas Railroads (Houston: St. Clair, 1941; rpt., New York: Arno, 1981).

Tracey L. Compton