Site of Lebanon
Frisco, Collin County, Texas
Marker Inscription
Settlers traveling to this area of Texas after it opened for settlement as part of the Peters Colony found free land, clear spring water and plenty of timber. Those who decided to stay named it Lebanon and began to establish homes and farms. On March 1, 1860, the U.S. Postal Service granted a post office to Lebanon, with Phillip Huffman serving as first postmaster. Although a general store begun by Z. T. Rainey in 1858 closed during the Civil War, other businesses soon were established. Located on the route of the historic Preston Road/Shawnee Trail, Lebanon was a popular stopping place for cattle drivers who used that road as their north-south route. Primarily a farming community, the town grew in the 1880s and 1890s to include a blacksmith shop, dry goods store, a saddlery, churches, doctors' offices, a hotel, tavern and other businesses. A two-story union school was built in 1885 to serve the schoolchildren in the community. In 1902, the St. Louis and San Francisco Railroad bypassed Lebanon, which resulted in an exodus of residents and businesses to the new railroad town of Frisco. The school closed in 1947, and by 1959 there were fewer than a dozen homes remaining in Lebanon. As the 21st century dawned, only three buildings stood from the original townsite, but the history of Lebanon remains as a part of the urban and suburban development in this part of Collin County. (2002)
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
Settlers drawn to free land, spring water, and timber in the Peters Colony named their community Lebanon and won a post office in 1860. Sitting on the Preston Road and Shawnee Trail, it became a favorite stop for cattle drovers and grew through the 1880s and 1890s into a town of shops, churches, a hotel, and a two-story school. When the railroad bypassed it in 1902 in favor of nearby Frisco, residents drifted away, and by the 21st century only three original buildings remained.
Why it matters
Lebanon's rise and near-vanishing tells the classic American story of how the railroad decided which frontier towns would flourish and which would fade into ghost towns.
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Related people
- · Phillip Huffman
- · Z. T. Rainey
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
The Shawnee Trail
Frisco, TX
In 1838 the young Republic of Texas funded a north-south road to open its northern reaches to trade, and surveyor Col. William G. Cooke laid it along an existing Indian trail running from the Red River toward Austin. The route's northern stretch became the Preston Road, and where it crossed the Trinity, John Neely Bryan founded Dallas in 1841. By the 1850s the whole path was known as the Shawnee Trail, carrying immigrants into Texas and cattle north to market until new trails and the railroads eclipsed it.
Frisco Methodist Church
Frisco, TX
Frontier settlers and a Methodist circuit-riding minister organized this congregation in a log home in 1848, naming it Bethel Methodist Church and raising a first sanctuary on donated land in 1852. Its camp meetings grew so large that a shed was built to shelter them in 1888, and in 1902 the church followed the new railroad into the town of Frisco, renaming itself as it went.
T. J. Campbell House
Frisco, TX
T. J. Campbell built this cypress-sided home in 1869 in Lebanon, Texas, right on the old Preston Road as longhorn herds streamed north. When the railroad and mail line bypassed Lebanon, the Campbells simply moved the house to Frisco in 1902, dressing it up with gingerbread trim. For decades the pioneer merchant family served this corner of Collin County.
Frankford
Dallas, TX
Frankford grew up around Indian Springs after the McKamy family arrived in 1852 and began selling firewood and water to settlers moving along Preston Road. At its height the little town had a grist mill, cotton gin, stores, three churches, and a Masonic lodge that served as its social heart. When the railroad ran through Addison instead, Frankford withered — the lodge moved away in 1907 and only the church and cemetery remain.