This is a Message Board Post that is gatewayed to this mailing list. Classification: Query Message Board URL: http://boards.ancestry.com/mbexec/msg/an/YlB.2ACI/2029.1 Message Board Post: PETTY, TEXAS (Lamar County). Petty, also known as Lookout and Dowlin, is a rural community at the junction of U.S. Highway 82 and Farm roads 137 and 1509 sixteen miles southwest of Paris in western Lamar County. It was first settled after the Civil War and was originally known as Lookout for its location on a small rise. After the Texas and Pacific Railway was built through the area in the mid-1880s, the town's name was changed to Dowlin, reportedly because passengers were frightened when conductors called out the name Lookout. In 1886 a post office was established, and the town's name was changed to Petty in honor of J. M. Petty, a local landowner. By 1890 the town had a church, a general store, a district school, several steam-powered gristmills and gins, a blacksmith, a furniture maker, a drug store, and an estimated population of 350. The town continued to grow during the 1910s and 1920s, reaching a peak population of 500 in the early 1930s. Subsequently the town steadil! y declined. The number of businesses fell from twelve in 1933 to only two by 1965; in the same period the population dwindled to about 100. In the early 1990s Petty was a dispersed rural community; it had an estimated population of 100 and two rated businesses. Handbook of Texas Online, "PETTY, TX," http://www.tsha.utexas.edu/handbook/online/ There were more Dowlin's than Petty's in Lamar county in 1880...no male Petty who seems to match " J M ". Due to the fire in the 1920's that destroyed most of the federal census for 1890, including Lamar county, land records would have to be searched to find this J M Petty. The 1880 census is on the LDS website.