Potosi, TX

Potosi is on Farm Road 1750 nine miles southeast of Abilene in eastern Taylor County. Its site was settled by the Pollard family in the 1870s. A Southern Methodist church was built in 1880, burned down in 1884, and was rebuilt. School was held in the church from 1891 until a one-room schoolhouse was built in 1897. In 1893 R. A. Pollard applied for a post office and chose the name Potosi, after the town in Mexico. By 1896 Potosi had an estimated 100 inhabitants, and in 1902 the Potosi school had ninety-three pupils and one teacher. The Baptist church of nearby Lytle Cove moved to Potosi in 1904, and in 1914 the community had a general store, two blacksmith shops, a cotton gin, and a dry-goods store. By 1940 Potosi consisted of eighty residents, a school, a church, four businesses, and a number of dwellings. Its population fell to twenty in the 1950s, then rose to 149 in 1968. In 1984 Potosi had two churches, a number of dwellings, a community center, and a church. It grew dramatically in the late 1980s and reported a population of 1,441 by 1992.