Rotan is a city in northwestern Fisher County, Texas, at the intersection of State highways 70 and 92 near the Double Mountain Fork of the Brazos River. The community predates the county's organization in 1886 and was first known as White Flat, a name drawn from the powdery white gypsum sand that lies near the surface of the surrounding land. When the Texas Central Railroad extended its line west in 1906, it selected White Flat as its terminus, and the first train arrived that October, triggering a rush of lot sales and rapid commercial growth. The railroad-era settlement took the name Rotan in 1907 when a post office application revealed that another Texas community already carried the White Flat name. A gypsum processing plant opened in 1923 and was later acquired and expanded by National Gypsum in 1935, becoming one of the largest facilities of its kind and giving the town a durable industrial employer alongside its agricultural base. Cotton, grain, and cattle ranching shaped the surrounding countryside, and Rotan grew into a regional commercial center for northwest Fisher County through the middle decades of the twentieth century. Today Rotan has a population of about 1,330, down from its mid-century peak as the broader West Texas economy shifted. The town remains the commercial and civic heart of its rural area, with Rotan ISD serving local students and the gypsum plant still anchoring employment. Residents value the community's quiet, agricultural pace, its wide-open setting near the Double Mountain Fork of the Brazos, and its role as a long-lived West Texas county town. For families tied to agriculture, the gypsum industry, or the broader regional economy, Rotan offers a stable and unpretentious home base.