Dish,Texas aka Clark,Texas

In an age of experimental marketing, the town, formerly known as Clark, agreed in 2005 to change its name as part of a deal with the Dish Network satellite TV service.

In exchange, existing and new residents can receive basic service (nearly 200 channels), as well as installation and equipment like a digital video recorder, all for free.

The town has tried to capitalize on this singular arrangement.

Signs declare Dish the home of free satellite TV, and the flat-screen televisions in the town hall are wired for Dish Network programming.

But the town is not exactly TV land.

Dish is 33 miles and many cattle pastures north of Fort Worth, with just 201 residents living in two square miles, according to the latest census.

The other day, one resident, Buddy Kinney, 60, was found not on the couch, but outside in the sun.

He was working on his gate.

Mr. Kinney pointed to the Dish Network satellite dish over his garage.

A federal customs officer, he said he enjoyed police dramas.

Asked whether he preferred Dish or Clark, he said, “I wished Jack Daniel’s would have looked us up.”

In rural Texas, small-town names are a kind of municipal commodity, giving spots on the map their own quirky and marketable identities. They include Cut and Shoot, Jot ‘Em Down and Ding Dong, which happens to be in Bell County.

In 1984, a movie called “Paris, Texas” helped that real-life town achieve fame, but no one has made a film called “Oatmeal, Texas.”

It is easier to find a jar of Bugtussle Burn salsa than it is to find the community it was named for: Bug Tussle, where the highway signs keep getting stolen.

A Dish Network spokesman said that the agreement had been beneficial for the company and the town, and that residents had received significant savings.

“Dish has been pleased to serve the residents of Dish, Tex., and looks forward to providing them with free service for years to come,” said the spokesman, John Hall.

But the renaming of Dish—its official name became DISH, to match the company’s all-caps style—did not turn the town into a household name, like Truth or Consequences, N.M., which named itself after the radio quiz show in 1950.

Some residents have wondered how they have benefitted from the 10-year arrangement.

“It’s not a very publicized item,” said Wester Draper, 34, who is one of the town council’s two members.

“You tell people you live in Dish, Texas, and they’re like, ‘Where’s Dish, Texas?’

Initially trying to get the service turned on, if you call them up and tell them you live in Dish and you get free TV, they don’t believe you, the customer service agents.”

Others complained that the signs trumpeting free satellite TV need an asterisk: While basic service is free, residents have to pay for HBO and other premium channels, as well as any additional equipment they might want.

Joe Ratliff, 83, said his bill is about $36 per month.

Mr. Draper pays $25.

Some residents have not bothered to sign up, because they were not interested or were customers of DirectTV.

Most residents do not use Dish for their mailing addresses, but instead use the town of Justin.

And though they have hundreds of channels beamed into their homes—Charles Smith, the other town commissioner, prefers Encore Westerns, Channel 342—there is not a single restaurant, convenience store or school.

Even the town hall has a vaguely temporary feel; the hangar-style building was built by the same man who made the storage units for Clark’s Aircraft & R.V. Sales.

“Dish doesn’t exist, in my opinion,” said Scott Bonfoey, 51, a new resident who gets DirectTV.

“My mailing address is Justin, my school district is Ponder. What’s Dish?”

Its identity may become even more uncertain.

The agreement expires in 2015, and though the mayor, William Sciscoe, said he supported extending the deal, the town commissioners, Mr. Smith and Mr. Draper, were in favor of changing the name back to Clark.

Mr. Hall, the Dish Network spokesman, said they have not discussed any future plans with the town.

The only place in Dish where the town’s former name survives is the airport.

An orange windsock there reading “Clark, Tx.” blows defiantly above the office of L. E. Clark, 78, who runs the airport, owns the aircraft and R.V. sales company, works at a desk with a tower of Playboy magazines at his elbow and hands visitors a business card reading, in part: “L. E. Clark. Airport bum.

Singer of sentimental ballads. Lover of beautiful women. Known to take an occasional sip of Scotch.”

He founded the town of Clark in 2000 and served as its first mayor, getting enough names on a petition for an election to be held to incorporate part of Denton County.

“The county judge called me one day and he said, ‘You know, we’ve got everything ready here for the election, but we don’t have a name for the town,'” he said in his office, within reach of the May 1987 issue of Playboy.

“I turned to my wife and said, ‘Mary, what do you think we ought to name it?’
She said, ‘Well, you done all the work and spent all the money, why don’t you just name it Clark?' ”

Mr. Clark said he believed the inspiration to change the town’s name came out of a rivalry he has had with the former mayor, William D. Merritt, and Mr. Merritt’s father.

In a mayoral race in 2005, Mr. Clark lost to the younger Mr. Merritt by one vote.

After the election, Mr. Clark pulled out the flagpole outside the town hall, explaining that his wife had bought it for him and it was coming with him.

Months later, the town switched names, in a unanimous town council vote that was supported by the new mayor, Mr. Merritt.

Mr. Merritt, a lawyer whose office is two-tenths of a mile from Mr. Clark’s office, declined to discuss Mr. Clark, saying in an e-mail that the name change “afforded the town and its residents a unique opportunity for progressive growth that otherwise would not have existed.”

Mr. Clark may be critical of the arrangement, but he, too, receives the same Dish Network deal as other residents.

His bill, he added, is nearly $84 a month.