Tokio

Tokio is at the intersection of U.S. Highway 82/380 and a local road, seventeen miles west of Brownfield in extreme western Terry County. The town was founded around 1908 and may have been named by Mrs. H. L. Ware for the capital of Japan. In 1912 a post office was opened with Mrs. Ware as postmistress, and in 1929 the community reported a population of fifteen. Located in a farming region with nearby oil and gas fields, Tokio kept its post office and a small population through the early 1990s. In the 1940s it reported about three businesses and 125 residents. From the 1950s through 1990 the town had an estimated population of sixty. In the early 1990s Tokio reported a post office and four businesses. The population dropped to twenty-four in 2000.