Editing Kyle, Texas (section)

==History==
{{unreferenced section|date=September 2024}}

As part of railroad expansion along the [[International–Great Northern Railroad|International-Great Northern Railroad]] (I&GN), railroad tycoon and entrepreneur, [[Jay Gould]], found an opportunity for additional revenue between the cities of Austin and San Marcos which were lined with cotton fields and livestock farms. Originally, the line railline was to cross over to [[Mountain City, Texas|Mountain City]], located three miles north of Kyle, but when addressing with his secretary, [[Ira Hobart Evans|Ira Evans]], it was seen as more cost effective to build a straight track from Austin to San Marcos which went right through the private lands of [[Fergus Kyle]] and his wife, Anne Moore. Following an agreement between the I&GN and the Kyle and Moore families for $1 and the enhanced value of the developed land of 200 acres.

The rights to the track through Kyle was then sold to the [[Texas Land Company]], which would be in charge of plotting the town, who then sent a surveying party and filed plans with the county clerk for the town on September 7, 1880. The town originally consisted only of 6x3 [[city block]]s for both commercial and residential zoning as well as a combination train depot and separate cotton platform along the tracks. The first lots were sold at an auction on September 25 under the now historically designated 'Auction Oak' with the railroad offering free rides and food for attendees from Austin.

The new town drew residents and businesses from Mountain City as well as [[Blanco, Texas|Blanco]], four miles west, as well as independent farmers and ranchers in the county. Tom Martin operated the first business in Kyle as a saloon-meat market combo, the first of four saloons to open in the town's inaugural year. Other founding families like the Nance and Wallace families would open a cotton gin and lumberyard not long after, and by 1883 the population exceeded 500, growing to over 700 by the first census the town participate in, but would later decline during the [[Great Depression in the United States|Great Depression]] and ensuing [[Dust Bowl]]. 

Kyle was incorporated in 1928 as a general-law city with a mayor and five council members. In 1937, Mary Kyle Hartson, daughter of Fergus Kyle, was elected mayor by a write-in vote. Hartson, after winning election again in 1944, would serve as mayor as part of an all-woman city council and making Kyle the only Texas town with an all-woman government.

From 1892 to 1901, Kyle was the childhood home of [[Pulitzer Prize]]–winning author [[Katherine Anne Porter]]. Many of her most famous short stories, such as "Noon Wine", are set in locations in and around Kyle. Her [[Katherine Anne Porter House|former home]] is now a writer's residence open to the public by appointment. The Katherine Anne Porter Literary Center hosts readings by visiting writers.

<gallery widths=200 heights=125>
File:Kyle Townsite Plat - 1880.png|Kyle Townsite Plat of 1880
File:Kyle Auction Oak 2015.jpg|Auction Oak
File:Katherine Anne Porter Literary Center 2018.jpg|The Katherine Anne Porter Literary Center
</gallery>