Alice took three names before the post office made one stick

Two rail lines crossed here in the 1880s, and the new town tried on names as it grew. It was Bandana first, then Kleberg. When a post office arrived in 1888, the place became Alice, named for Alice King Kleberg.

The junction quickly gathered the pieces of a town: homes, businesses, schools, and churches. The Texas Rangers even kept a South Texas headquarters here. Those details make the old railroad crossing feel less like a dot on a map and more like the start of a regional center.

Alice elected its first mayor in 1904. Seven years later, the newly formed Jim Wells County chose Alice as its seat. The county marker still gives the short version: created from Nueces County in March 1911, organized that May, and named for lawyer James B. Wells.