First Site of City of Sherman
Sherman, Grayson County, Texas
Marker Inscription
When Grayson County was created on March 17, 1846, by the first Legislature of the State of Texas, the act named the county seat in honor of Sidney Sherman (1805-73), an heroic leader at the Battle of San Jacinto and in the affairs of the Republic of Texas. Commissioners to select possible courthouse sites within 3 miles of center of the county were Micajah Davis, George C. Dugan, Richard McIntire, James Shannon, and James G. Thompson. This site on the old Cherokee Trail and the road to important river crossing at Preston Bend won approval of the voters. Townsite lots were auctioned late in the year 1846. Chief Justice James G. Thompson supervised building of courthouse under a contract awarded in Jan. 1847 to M. L. Webster. Completion of the structure called for special celebration in a Fourth of July picnic with barbeque, a barrel of whiskey, music, and dancing. Water and wood for public use were scarce at this site, called "a bald prairie". State Representative James B. Shannon (one of the original county seat commissioners) secured new legislation; he and Samuel Blagg, his business partner, on Nov. 23, 1848, deeded from their holdings to the county commissioners an 80-acre Sherman townsite 5 miles to the east. Incise on back: Sponsored by the Grayson County Historical survey committee and erected by the Sherman city council as a memorial to the pioneers of this area
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
When the Texas Legislature created Grayson County in 1846, it named the seat for Sidney Sherman, a hero of San Jacinto. Commissioners chose this spot on the old Cherokee Trail near an important crossing at Preston Bend, and the first courthouse was finished in 1847—celebrated with a Fourth of July barbecue, a barrel of whiskey, music, and dancing. But this "bald prairie" lacked water and wood, so in 1848 legislators arranged to move the townsite five miles east to its present location.
Why it matters
Sherman's false start captures the trial-and-error of frontier town founding, where geography and the simple need for water and timber could relocate a whole county seat.
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Related people
- · Sidney Sherman
- · James B. Shannon
- · James G. Thompson
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Grayson County
Sherman, TX
Grayson County grew from Holland Coffee's 1837 trading post at the Red River's Preston Bend into a hub of the Peters' Colony and, in 1846, a county named for Republic of Texas attorney general Peter W. Grayson. Its seat, Sherman, moved to its present site in 1848 and earned fame for so many courthouses and fine 19th-century schools that it was called the "Athens of Texas." The Butterfield Trail, cattle drives, and early railroads all crossed the county, and Lake Texoma later made it a tourist draw.
Pottsboro
Pottsboro, TX
Before Anglo settlers arrived, the Caddo and Wichita peoples occupied this stretch of North Texas. The town took shape when Confederate veteran and land developer James A. Potts, who had come to Grayson County in 1868, deeded a railroad right-of-way to a Missouri-Kansas-Texas subsidiary in 1878 and platted the townsite that bears his name. Incorporated in 1885, Pottsboro survived repeated fires and later drew new life from the 1940s construction of Perrin Army Air Field and Lake Texoma.
Preston Road/Shawnee Trail
Pottsboro, TX
Laid out in 1840 by Colonel W. G. Cooke and the Texas First Infantry, this military road ran from Austin north to Holland Coffee's trading post on the Red River, becoming known as Preston Road. Immigrants poured south along it—roughly 1,000 wagons crossed the river in one six-week span in 1845—and by the mid-1850s it carried Texas's first great cattle drives. Renamed the Shawnee Trail for a nearby Native American settlement, it funneled herds across Rock Bluff Crossing until the Civil War, with the last large drives passing in 1871.
Sand Springs
Denison, TX
Sand Springs was a prized watering place where cold water boiled up at the foot of a rocky bluff, known to settlers by 1840 and carved with the names of passing travelers into an "inscription rock." Gold seekers bound for California camped here in 1849, Butterfield's Overland Mail coaches stopped by 1857, and postwar cattle drives watered their herds before the coming of the railroad to Denison in 1872 reshaped the land around it.