Blood & Biohazard Cleanup Near Downtown Anson Anson, TX

Anson is a city in west-central Texas and the county seat of Jones County, sitting at the junction of U.S. Highways 83/277 and 180 within the Abilene metropolitan area.

The town was originally named Jones City and was renamed Anson in 1882 in honor of Anson Jones, the last president of the Republic of Texas.

Anson became the seat of Jones County when the county was designated in 1881, and it has kept that role ever since.

The 2020 census counted 2,294 people in Anson, and recent Census survey estimates put the city at roughly 1,080 households.

Anson is famous for the Texas Cowboys' Christmas Ball, a three-night dance held the weekend before Christmas that was first staged in 1885 by M. G. Rhodes at his Star Hotel.

The ball inspired Larry Chittenden's poem 'The Cowboys' Christmas Ball,' first published on June 19, 1890 in the Anson Texas Western, which folklorist John Lomax later included in his landmark 1910 collection 'Cowboy Songs and Other Frontier Ballads.'

The revived ball is held in Pioneer Hall, a Works Progress Administration building constructed in 1938-1940 expressly to host the event, and singer Michael Martin Murphey has performed there since 1993.

Old ball traditions are still kept in Anson: gentlemen do not dance wearing a hat, and ladies are expected to wear a dress or skirt.

Anson is often linked to the 1984 film 'Footloose' - the city enforced a 'no dancing' ordinance, with an exception only for the Christmas Ball, until 1987, when it was changed to allow supervised dancing.

The Texas Cowboys' Christmas Ball was designated a historical event by the Texas Historical Commission in 2010, and a historical marker stands at Pioneer Hall.