Off The Beaten Path - Caddo, TX

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CADDO, TEXAS (Stephens County). Caddo, at the junction of U.S. Highway 180, Farm Road 717, and Park Road 33 in east central Stephens County, was established in the late 1870s on a Caddo Indian campsite. In 1880 the town had sixty residents, two churches, a school, and a post office. Its reported population was seventy-five in 1890 and 149 in 1900.

The Ranger oil boom of 1916–17 increased Caddo's population to 1,000 by 1920. Oil was discovered on the W. L. Carey farm near Caddo in 1916, then on the L. W. Wright property at Caddo. These finds kept interest high and were harbingers of the Breckenridge boom in 1917. Caddo had 600 residents in 1940, but World War II and the postwar era saw the town decline. In 1980, 1990, and 2000 its population was forty, and its post office was still in service.