NEWPORT, TEXAS (Clay County). Newport is on Farm Road 1288 twenty-four miles southeast of Henrietta in extreme southeastern Clay County. It was established by L. Hancock in 1872 and was originally known as Bear Hill. A post office opened there in 1878, and the next year the name was changed to Newport-a word formed from combining the first letters of the surnames of seven leading residents. By 1900 Newport had a population of 176. It had increased to 280 by the mid-1920s and stayed at that level through the 1930s, when twelve businesses operated locally, and into the mid-1940s. By the mid-1950s the population had dropped to eighty-five, with three businesses. From the 1960s through 2000 the population of Newport was estimated as seventy. By 1990 Newport reported one business, and the town had spread into Jack County.

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

Brian Hart