After Kyle was founded in 1880, its early population and business came from two antebellum settlements, the Blanco or Nance community seven miles west and Mountain City three miles west. Fergus Kyle, for whom the town was named, and the family of David Moore donated 200 acres for a townsite when the International & Great Northern Railroad built a line from Austin to San Antonio. Lots were first sold in October 1880 at an auction held beneath a liveoak at 204 S. Sledge Street. The first business was a saloon and meat market owned by Tom Martin. An 1895 election incorporated the town, but voters ended that status two years later. Kyle was incorporated again in 1906, and J. W. Tompkins served as the first mayor. In the 1940s, Kyle residents elected an all-woman municipal government. The mayor, Mary Kyle Hartson, daughter of Fergus Kyle, won through a write-in campaign. Her brother Edwin Jackson Kyle was dean of the Texas A&M School of Agriculture and later served in the administrations of Presidents Franklin Roosevelt and Harry Truman as ambassador to Guatemala from 1944 to 1948. Kyle Football Field at Texas A&M University is named in his honor.