Located at the Oklahoma boundary of north central Texas, Grayson County was originally inhabited by various Caddo Indian groups. In the mid-1830s, French and Spanish traders established settlements on the Red River, and more settlements, including the English-speaking Peters colony, soon followed. Though named for Republic of Texas Attorney General Peter W. Grayson, a Democrat, in 1846, in political compromise the county’s seat was called Sherman after a Whig General. After the Civil War, a period of phenomenal growth began in the agricultural county, which more than doubled in population, reaching 38,108 residents by 1880 and becoming a milling and market center. The population began to drop after reaching 74,000 in 1920, a number it did not reach again until the 1970s. In 1938, Congress authorized the construction of a dam north of Denison, forming Lake Takoma and controlling Red River flooding. As the number of local farms declined in the 1940s and 1950s, oil production, begun in Grayson County in 1930, took over the local economy.
Source:
Kumler, Donna J. “
Plat-book and scrapbook pages, letter transcripts, and typed histories comprise the Grayson County Collection, [ca. 1930s-1950s], documenting the history of the county in the 19th and early 20th centuries. The plat-book consists of printed material on landowners in Grayson County, organized by surname, including their date of arrival, vocation, and biographical information. Newspaper clippings, including obituaries, from the 1930s to 1950s, comprise the scrapbook, documenting county events and news. The letters and histories, compiled by local historians, concern early Grayson settlers and the history of county institutions, such as the Sherman public library, courthouses, and judgeships.
This collection is open for research use.
Grayson County Collection, [ca. 1930s-1950s], Dolph Briscoe Center for American History, The University of Texas at Austin.