First Site of City of Sherman

🏛️The era

Texas joined the United States in late 1845. In the spring of 1846 the new state's first Legislature began organizing counties across its vast territory. North Texas along the Red River was still frontier. Settlers were arriving, and trails and river crossings linked the area to the United States and Indian Territory to the north.

The same Legislature created Grayson County on March 17, 1846. A new county needed a county seat, and a county seat needed a courthouse. Where to put it was a serious decision, because the town that got the courthouse would become the center of government, trade, and community life.

That is why road access mattered so much. This site stood on the old Cherokee Trail and on the road to an important Red River crossing at Preston Bend. In those days, a place on a well-traveled route was a real advantage.

👥People & events

The Legislature named the future county seat for Sidney Sherman, who had been a leader at the Battle of San Jacinto and was prominent in the affairs of the Republic of Texas. Sherman commanded troops in that decisive 1836 battle. His name was a natural choice for a young state honoring the men of its revolution.

Five commissioners, Micajah Davis, George C. Dugan, Richard McIntire, James Shannon, and James G. Thompson, were told to find possible courthouse sites within three miles of the county's center. Voters approved this spot. Town lots were auctioned late in 1846, and in January 1847 a contract to build the courthouse went to M. L. Webster, under the supervision of Chief Justice James G. Thompson.

The finished courthouse got a proper frontier celebration: a Fourth of July picnic with barbecue, music, dancing, and a barrel of whiskey. It's easy to imagine settlers coming in from miles around for the occasion.

The cheer didn't last. The site was a "bald prairie," short on the water and wood that everyday life depended on. State Representative James B. Shannon, one of the original commissioners, got new legislation passed. On November 23, 1848, he and his business partner Samuel Blagg deeded eighty acres of their land, five miles to the east, to the county commissioners as a new townsite for Sherman.

🇺🇸Its place in the American story

Sherman's false start is a clear example of how towns were founded all over the American frontier. Lawmakers could draw county lines and name towns on paper, but water, timber, and good roads decided whether a town would thrive. Many American communities moved at least once before they found the right ground.

The story also shows how land, local politics, and private interests were bound together in the frontier West. Here a commissioner who became a legislator ended up donating his own holdings for the new town. Deals like that shaped the location of courthouse towns across the country.

The routes that made this spot appealing, the Cherokee Trail and the road to the Red River crossing, were part of a wider network of trails that tied Texas to the rest of the continent. Sherman, at its later site, grew into an important North Texas town, but its story starts here, on an open prairie with a brand-new courthouse and too little water.

🧭If you visit

This marker is a memorial to the pioneers of the area, placed by the Sherman city council at the first chosen site of the county seat. Look out over the land and picture the open prairie those early settlers saw. Then ask yourself where you would find water and firewood, the problem that doomed the site.

The back of the marker records its sponsors, the Grayson County Historical Survey Committee and the Sherman city council, so read both sides. Then drive the five miles or so east to present-day Sherman. The distance helps you see how far the county seat moved, and why the new location made sense.

If you are exploring North Texas history, this stop makes a good start for a trip toward the Red River, where crossings like the one at Preston Bend once connected Texas to the lands to the north.