940 Area Code – Wichita Falls, Texas: Location, Time Zone & History

When area code 817 could no longer serve all of north-central Texas, the region was split three ways effective July 25, 1997: 817 kept Fort Worth and Tarrant County, 254 took the southern stretch around Waco, Killeen, and Temple, and 940 was created for the northern portion, covering Wichita Falls, Denton, Gainesville, and the surrounding prairie.

Wichita Falls serves as the primary city, while Denton, home to the University of North Texas and Texas Woman's University, has grown into the largest city in the numbering plan area. Sheppard Air Force Base is the region's biggest single employer, and Denton also hosts a Peterbilt Motors truck assembly plant, alongside the wheat and cattle agriculture that spans the north-central Texas landscape. Mandatory ten-digit local dialing arrived later, on October 24, 2021, part of a nationwide effort to free the 988 code for the Suicide & Crisis Lifeline.

Wichita Falls hosts the Hotter'N Hell Hundred, launched for the city's 1982 centennial and billed as the largest single-day century bicycle ride in the country, while its Newby-McMahon Building, built in 1919, is famously known as the "World's Littlest Skyscraper." Denton, meanwhile, has built a national reputation for its independent music scene, anchored by a College of Music that was the first in the country to offer a jazz studies degree. Unlike many of its Texas neighbors, 940 has not required an overlay as of 2026.