The Avery post office opened in 1902, the earliest record of the town by name. Another post office, Isaca (1881), opened inside today’s town and later closed.
2020 census: 421124 years
Founding year: the first Avery post office (Blevins & Helbock, CC0).The full story ↓
What stands out about Avery’s past
Read from the archive, the National Register and the record. The page puts what stands out first.
The town was established in the 1870s. Avery is located on U.S. Highway 82, sixteen miles southeast of Clarksville in eastern Red River County. When the Texas and Pacific railroad was being constructed through the county in the 1870s, the managers of the railroad planned a station at the site and named it Douglass. Settlement in the community was slow because the surrounding area was so sparsely populated. When a correspondent of the Clarksville Standard newspaper visited Douglass in early 1881, he found a collection of families living in tents. Later that year, when Isaac Bradford and his partner opened their general store, a post office was established there, and the name of the town was changed to Isaca. In 1902 the name was changed to Avery, in honor of Ed Avery, the first railway station agent. In 1884, the population was estimated at thirty, and by 1896 it had increased to forty-e…
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 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.
