Yancey is a small historic unincorporated community in Medina County, named for Yancey Kilgore and Yancey Strait, sons of the original townsite's owners, and earlier known as Tehuacana or Moss. In 1897 a post office was established, and Benjamin F. Moss brought mail by horseback from Hondo twice weekly, while a country store and cotton gin were also in place. In 1913 the Stiles, Community, and Tehuacana schools were consolidated into a larger school located there. By 1914 Yancey had 350 inhabitants, two general stores, a drug store, a cotton gin, and a blacksmith shop, and it was widely known for the quality of its peaches, plums, and watermelons. Because it was not on a major highway or railroad, the community was in earlier times almost entirely dependent on agriculture, producing cattle, hogs, goats, corn, cotton, pecans, honey, broomcorn, and sorgum grains, and a small gas field operated locally for a short period. In 1924 the town centered on a store, post office, two churches, and a school that later became the first in Medina County to offer vocational agriculture and home economics. Although the Yancey school eventually closed, Yancey High School in its heyday was known as a basketball and six-man football power, and the community's churches have long been important in the lives of its citizens.