Guest, Sign inJoin

Post to Amherst

We’ll email a one-tap link to publish your post. No password, and nothing is public until you click it.
Already a member? Sign in
–Not graded
History · Amherst

Amherst’s post office opened in 1923

Most of Amherst was built recently: 8% of its homes predate 1940 and the median home dates from 1961. Below: maps from 1962 on and the census since 1930.

1923first post office
0on the National Register
8%homes built before 1940
1famous people
Add an old photoShare a memory
Photo: Leaflet · CC BY-SA 3.0
Quick answers

How Amherst began

When was Amherst founded?

1923

The Amherst post office opened in 1923, the earliest record of the town by name.

First census: 964 in 19302020 census: 678103 years
Founding year: the first Amherst post office (Blevins & Helbock, CC0).The full story ↓

What stands out about Amherst’s past

Read from the archive, the National Register and the record. The page puts what stands out first.

A history waiting to be writtenNo old photos of Amherst are in the public archives yet. The rest are in attics and albums.Old housesHalf of Amherst’s homes were built before 1961.
★ What stands out · Help out

Start Amherst’s collection

The first neighbors to add old photos shape how Amherst’s history is told.

Decades since 1900 with photos
00s10s20s30s40s50s60s70s80s90s
0 of 10 decades. The empty ones are waiting for someone’s album.
Share a family photoSign in to add one+10
The story

How Amherst came to be

From Wikipedia’s history of Amherst.

Read it all →

Amherst, on U.S. Route 84 and the BNSF Railway in west central Lamb County, began in 1913 as a Pecos and Northern Texas Railway station for William E. Halsell's Mashed O Ranch. A townsite was platted a mile from the Santa Fe depot in 1923 and named for Amherst College by a railroad official. The post office opened in 1924. By 1930, thirty-five businesses and 964 people constituted a lively trade center, and amenities included a newspaper, the Amherst Argus. For many years the Amherst Hotel, the town's first permanent building, was the most popular stopping place between Clovis, New Mexico and Lubbock, Texas. The population in Amherst was 749 in 1940, when the first co-op hospital in Texas was built there. Incorporation came in 1970, when the population was 825. In 1980, the population was 971, and businesses included five cotton gins and two grain elevators. Sod House Spring Monument, c…

Text from Wikipedia, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0.

Timeline

Amherst, 1923 to 1962

Woven from the archive, old maps, post office records, the National Register and the people born here.

  1. 20th century
  2. 1923Post officeThe Amherst post office opens
  3. 1947Born hereDan Hewitt Owens is born here
  4. 1962On the mapFirst mapped by the U.S. Geological Survey
By decade

Amherst, decade by decade

Today1 recent
Amherst Texas Grain Elevators 20102010Amherst Texas Grain Elevators 2010
On the map

Amherst on the map, 1962 to 1981

Every edition of the U.S. Geological Survey’s map of Amherst. Tap a year, or press play to watch the town change.

Amherst on the 1962 USGS mapAmherst on the 1981 USGS map1962Amherst sheet · 1:24,000

U.S. Geological Survey historical topographic maps (public domain), via Esri’s collection of the scans. The red ring marks the center of Amherst.

People over time

Amherst, census by census

02004006008001,00019401960198020002020Peak: 971

Between 678 and 971 people in every census since 1930.

10 censuses, 1930–2020.

U.S. Census Bureau decennial counts, from the census table on Amherst’s Wikipedia page.

Questions about Amherst’s history

What year was Amherst founded?

The Amherst post office opened in 1923, the earliest record of the town by name (U.S. post office records).

Memory lane

What the archives can’t tell you, neighbors can.

Town Square →
Start a conversation
Sources

Where this page comes from

Founding dates: Wikidata, Wikipedia, the U.S. post office records of Blevins & Helbock (CC0) and the Census. Homes by year built: Census ACS 2020–24. National Register of Historic Places: National Park Service (list of May 22, 2026). Old photos, postcards and papers: Wikimedia Commons, the Library of Congress and other public archives, credited on each item’s page. Maps: U.S. Geological Survey historical topographic maps (via Esri) and Sanborn fire-insurance maps (Library of Congress). History text and census tables: Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0). Places that used to be: USGS Geographic Names Information System (2021). How TownRatings grades history →

From Wikimedia Commons (1), Wikipedia, Wikidata and Wikipedia for famous people, U.S. Geological Survey historical maps, U.S. Census counts (via Wikipedia), the US Post Offices dataset (Blevins & Helbock) and the USGS Geographic Names Information System. Archive images are copied here with their credits and licenses, shown on each photo’s page. Refreshed monthly.