ALBA, TEXAS

History in a Pecan Shell

Settlement dates from the 1840s. The town didn’t emerge as a community until the arrival of the Missouri, Kansas and Texas Railroad in 1881. The town was granted a post office later that year.

The town was known as Alba, although some sources say the depot and school went by the variation of Albia. There are two versions of how the name came about. One states it was named after the son of a railroad official and the other says the name was meant to convey that the town was to be for whites only (Alba is Latin for white).

In 1882 the town was platted and two years later there was a population of 50. By the mid 1890s it had grown to 300 and had a school educating 134 pupils.

Lignite coal was discovered around the turn of the 20th Century and within a few years The Texas Short Line Railroad carried coal to Grand Saline.

Five area mines were taking 40,000 tons of coal a month out of the region in 1911 and the town was prospering with 1,500 residents.

In 1914 the town had acquired a telephone connection and a water system. From a population estimated at between 1,600 and 2,000 in the late 1920s, it fell to a mere 662 with the arrival of the Great Depression.

An oil discovery in the late 1940s brought renewed economic hope, but the population dropped 545 and then declined even further in the late 1960s when it reached a low of 408 residents.

Alba, Texas Landmarks / Photo Gallery

Prayer Chapel near Alba
Photo courtesy Barcly Gibson, May 2004
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