The townsite was platted in 1886 by the Gulf, Colorado and Santa Fe Railway 3 miles (5 km) north of Kingston, on open prairie already crossed by the Missouri, Kansas and Texas line.

This location was chosen in order to ensure that Kingston, whose elected officials had refused to offer incentives to attract the Gulf, Colorado and Santa Fe to build through their community, would be bypassed by the line as it put down tracks from Paris through Farmersville to Dallas.

The population by the mid-1890s stood at 600, and the community maintained three gristmills and cotton gins, a bank, a weekly newspaper, and a graded public school.

By 1914 the community had two banks, three cotton gins, a water works, an ice factory, and a weekly newspaper, as well as some thirty-five other businesses.

In 1982 the community, where World War II hero Audie Murphy once lived, had a bank, four churches, ten stores, and a school that enrolled 300 students.