History
Tioga Cemetery
In November 1881, settlers established the community of Tioga on the eastern edge of the East Cross Timbers, and it incorporated as a city in 1906. For the first decades of Tioga's history, resident buried their loved ones on private land in family cemeteries. In February 1906, W.R. and Sally J.
History
Tom Randolph
(Nov. 13, 1854 - Jan. 8, 1918) Tennessee native Thomas Randolph came to Grayson County with his family in 1859. Groomed to be a businessman, he was invited at age 19 to join C. C. Binkley at the Merchants and Planters Bank, which grew into a very prosperous and influential financial institution. Randolph served as bank president from 1886 until his death.
History
Town of Gunter, on Old Gunter Ranch
Established 1880s by Jot Gunter, developer of Texas real estate, prominent Grayson County businessman. In mid-1890s his ranch exceeded 20,000 acres. Gunter, born in North Carolina in 1845, came to Texas to practice law after he served in Confederate army. The town of Gunter, incorporated in 1914, was named for him.
History
Travis Lodge No. 117, A. F. & A. M.
Founded in 1852, only six years after Sherman was designated the county seat, this Masonic Lodge is one of the oldest continuing institutions in the community. Local Attorney Burrell Smith and fifteen other Masonic brothers petitioned for a dispensation to organize a Masonic Lodge in Sherman on February 10, 1852. On August 28, 1852, Travis Lodge No. 117 was organized and officers were installed.
Architecture
Umphress-Taylor Home
Pioneer area landowner, banker, agriculturalist, and community leader James C. Umphress (1841-1917), a Confederate veteran of the Civil War, built this Victorian house for his wife Julia Caroline (Veazey) (d.1932) in 1903. In 1932 it was inherited by a daughter, Maude (Umphress) Taylor (d.1977), who lived here until 1974.
History
Van Alstyne
The town of Mantua was established about 3 miles southwest of here in 1854. Mantua prospered but was unexpectedly bypassed in 1873 when the Houston and Texas Central Railway (H&TC) extended its track through this area instead. That year a depot was built and a post office established in the new town named for Maria Van Alstyne, the widow of W. A.
History
Vittitoe Cemetery
This graveyard was begun as a family burial plot by Samuel and Ellen Vittitoe, who settled on land surrounding this site in 1852. Their son, Frank, probably was the first to be buried here sometime before the outbreak of the Civil War, although his headstone is undated. The Vittitoes made it known to the residents of Kentucky Town (1 mi.
History
W. B. and Ella Munson Home
William Benjamin Munson (1846-1930) was born in Fulton County, Illinois. He was the first graduate of Kentucky's Agricultural and Mechanical College (later, University of Kentucky) in 1869. He had moved to Texas by 1871, settling in Sherman and studying law. Munson later partnered with R.S.
Industry & Science
Waples-Platter Grocery Company
The Waples-Platter Grocery Company was established in 1872, before the City of Denison. Founded as Hanna, Owens & Co. In 1871, the company supplied Missouri-Kansas-Texas (mkt) railroad workers with provisions. The company moved to Main Street where a commercial district was quickly established.
History
Washburn Cemetery
Samuel and Mary Washburn and their family moved to Texas from Missouri in 1836. Washburn was granted 1280 acres of land in 1838. As more settlers moved into the area, a burial site was needed and a portion of land on the south edge of the Washburn survey was set aside for a cemetery. The oldest marked grave is that of infant Mary Gentry in 1867.
Industry & Science
Washington Iron Works Inc.
In 1875 Solon Totten (1847-1932) made two horseback trips to Texas from Quincy, Ilinois, searching for better conditions for the family blacksmith business. Finding stage companies operating out of Sherman which required blacksmith services, he persuaded his father and family to move here. In 1876 Solon and his brother Levi Totten (1844-1915) opened "Totten Bros. Blacksmith" on Cherry Street.
History
Whitaker Cemetery
Pioneers in the Clayton school-house community began using this site on J. W. Whitaker's farm as a burial ground in 1866, with the interment of Joseph McLean. The settlers, who were farmers and ranchers from Mississippi and other southern states, bought this cemetery in 1880 and continued to use it as a burial ground.
History
Whitesboro
Settlers moved to this site after Ambrose B. White (1811-83) camped here on his way west from Illinois in 1848. His inn here was on the Butterfield Stage route after 1858. The post office, opened in 1860, was named for White, who surveyed (1869) the townsite with Dr. W. H. Trolinger (1827-95), donor of land for a park. When Whitesboro incorporated in 1873, White was elected its first mayor.
History
Whitewright
Early settlers in this part of Grayson County established communities at Orangeville (4 mi. E), Pilot Grove ( 4 mi. S), and Kentucky Town (3 mi. W). In 1878, after the Missouri, Kansas, and Texas (MKT) railroad built a line southeast from Denison to this site, a new town was created and named for William Whitewright (1825-1898), a railroad official and vice president of the Union Trust Company of…
History
Whitewright Masonic Lodge No. 167
Whitewright Masonic Lodge No. 167 In 1855, men in Kentucky Town organized a Masonic lodge, receiving their charter the following year as the Kentucky Town Masonic Lodge No. 167. More than 20 years later, in 1878, the Missouri, Kansas & Texas Railroad bypassed Kentucky Town, running three miles east in the newly established town of Whitewright.
History
William Whitley Wheat
William Whitley Wheat William Whitley Wheat (1820-1890) was born in Alabama to Samuel and Cynthia (Stinson) Wheat. He married Cynthia Ann Maynard, and the couple came to Texas in 1842 to Peters Colony. They moved three years later to what is now Grayson County, settling and raising ten children near Farmington.
History
Wilson N. Jones
(c. 1827 - 1901) Born in Mississippi, Wilson N. Jones was a member of the Choctaw Nation. As a young boy, Jones joined his family and the rest of the Choctaws in what became known as the Trail of Tears, the removal of Native Americans to the Indian Territory (Oklahoma) in the 1830s.
History
Younger Scott McKinney Home
The land surrounding this house was originally owned by Collin McKinney, a prominent early Texas statesman. In 1857 McKinney deeded the acreage to his son Younger Scott (1819-1907), who was born in Kentucky but grew up in Red River County. When Younger Scott McKinney moved to his property in Grayson County, he built this home for his wife Sarah (Janes) and their six children.
Elsewhere in Texas
Hear it from the road
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