Biohazard Cleanup Near South Dodson Dodson, TX

Dodson is an incorporated town in southeastern Collingsworth County in the eastern Texas Panhandle, about a mile west of the Texas-Oklahoma state line.

Dodson was founded in the spring of 1910 by Frank Kell, promoter of the Wellington branch of the Wichita Falls and Northwestern Railway, as a stop on that line.

The town was named for Elmore Dodson, a local pioneer and rancher who donated a 200-acre grant of land as a bonus to guarantee the railroad would pass through southeastern Collingsworth County.

Dodson was formally opened on August 29, 1910, with a gala celebration and picnic attended by a trainload of visitors from Oklahoma.

N. L. Jones built the town's first residence and opened a cotton gin, its first store was run by William T. McDowell, who was also the first postmaster, and the town soon added a hotel, a bank, a telephone exchange, and two churches.

Dodson's first permanent school building was completed in 1912 and was used until a new school was constructed in 1947.

Dodson was incorporated in the 1920s, and by 1930 it had twenty-five businesses and a peak population of 426 people.

The town's name was officially shortened from Dodsonville to Dodson on July 1, 1937.

Dodson's population fell steadily as local farming declined and ranching took over, dropping from 426 in 1930 to 185 by the early 1980s, when it was still Collingsworth County's second-largest town, with four churches and a single business.

In the 2000 census, Dodson's 115 residents lived in just 53 households, and by the 2020 census the town had 93 residents.