One of the first settlers of Quail Texas was W. I. Atkinson
and family. They came to Quail the 15th November, 1890 and settled on sec 26.
T. S. Atkinson located on sec 28 and the two Atkinsons went to work and built
a dugout on section 28 and that was the beginning of the settlement of Quail.
The first several years of the settlement of Quail was completely Atkinsons.
Other settlers moved into the community but only stayed a short time before
moving on. The only other settler other than Atkinson was John Coleman who lived
12 miles to the north.
In 1893 the Atkinsons planted the first cotton to be grown
in the Quail community. The year before they planted six acres but never harvested
because there was no way to have the cotton ginned. In 1893 they planted ten
acres and harvested the cotton and hauled it to Memphis to have it ginned. In
1897 a bumper crop was raised and the need for a gin and in 1904 Greer Powell
started a cotton gin. It was sold several times during the time it was used
to gin the crops in the Quail community.
The J E Blevins family was the second permanent family of Quail.
This family settled on the section that most of the town of Quail is located.
In 1902 a post office was established and Sam Wilson was the first postmaster.
The first store to be established in Quail was by W.M. Barton and Mr. Kinard.
This store changed hands several times and finally went broke. The 'Quail Mercantile'
was built by Dr. Ed Beck and later sold to Tom Crabtree. Crabtree ran the store
for many years and it was the largest business in Quail. The first school was
built in 1902 with A.W. Atkinson being the first teacher. School was held in
this building until it was destroyed in 1977 by a tornado. The school was built
back and continued for several years. The first telephone exchange was in put
in by a man named Benson and the wire was strung on a barbed wire fence. The
first church to be erected in Quail was the Baptist church in 1902 while the
first Methodist church was erected in 1909. A Church of Christ was erected in
later years. In 1935 most of the small schools consolidated with Quail and it
became on of the largest school districts in the county.
Today Quail is only memories of the days of a bustling town.
Almost all the stores are closed and almost all of the families that settled
that community are gone. Today the Quail Peanut Company is located one half
mile south of Quail and processes millions of dollars of peanuts every year
for the area farmers. Cotton,wheat and other crops are taken to nearby Wellington.
