THALIA, TEXAS. Thalia, at the junction of U.S. Highway 70 and
Farm Road 262, eleven miles east of Crowell in east central
Foard County, was granted a post office in 1890, the same year a
school was founded at the community. Thalia was in Hardeman
County until the establishment of Foard County in 1891. The town
was first called Paradise, but when postal authorities rejected
the name, it was renamed Thalia, meaning "blooming" or
"luxuriant." The townsite, donated by William W. Pigg, was
platted in 1910. Growth was stimulated by the oil boom of the
1920s that gave Thalia twenty-two businesses. The town was
incorporated in 1926, when the population was fifty. The reduced
oil production and droughts of the Great Depression years set
the town back. The high school, added to the school system in
1930, closed in 1943. The population was 180 in 1950. The post
office was closed by 1960, and by 1980 Thalia had a population
of 104. The town was the setting of Larry McMurtry's novel The
Last Picture Show (1966). Through 2