Fred

Fred is seven miles south of Spurger in extreme southeastern Tyler County. The Fred post office was established in 1881 with Wiley Cunningham as the first postmaster. In 1883 the community had a population of thirty, along with two churches, a general store, and a school. The principal shipments from the town were cotton and hides. The community's population had risen to seventy-five by 1913. In 1917 the Shilo Independent School District operated near Fred. In the 1920s, with population growth and improved transportation routes in the county, the number of local school districts began to decline, but the Fred district existed until at least the mid-1950s. By the late 1960s Fred had 349 residents, and from the early 1970s through 2000 it reported a population of 239. The Fred post office was one of only three post offices extant in Tyler County in the 1960s. A new brick post office building opened in 1976, and was still operating in 2004. The old wooden post office building had been renovated into a private residence. In the mid-1980s the Fred Elementary School was part of the Warren Independent School District.