Site of Old Town Paradise
Paradise, Wise County, Texas
Marker Inscription
SITE OF OLD TOWN PARADISE PARADISE IS A SMALL INCORPORATED TOWN WITH A POPULATION JUST SHORT OF 500 AND LOCATED IN SOUTH CENTRAL WISE COUNTY. ONE OF THE EARLIEST SETTLERS IN WISE COUNTY WAS O. H. P. READ, WHO MADE HIS HOME HERE IN 1858. MANY PIONEERS BEGAN MOVING TO THE AREA, INITIALLY CALLED ELDORADO. WILLIAM M. ANDERSON OPENED A GENERAL STORE, AND SOON AFTER, OTHER BUSINESSES SPRANG UP TO SERVE THE COMMUNITY. A TOWN SQUARE WAS DESIGNED BY LOCAL SURVEYOR BEN BANKS, AND A WATER WELL WAS DUG ON THE SOUTHEAST CORNER OF THE SQUARE. IN 1876, ELDORADO RECEIVED THE RIGHTS TO HAVE A POST OFFICE, BUT BECAUSE ANOTHER TOWN HAD CLAIMED THE RIGHTS TO THE NAME, IT CHANGED ITS NAME TO PARADISE PRAIRIE, LATER SHORTENED TO PARADISE. IN 1892, THE CHICAGO, ROCK ISLAND & TEXAS RAILWAY BUILT A LINE FROM MONTAGUE COUNTY SOUTH TO WEATHERFORD IN PARKER COUNTY. THE RAIL LINE RAN THROUGH WISE COUNTY AND CAME WITHIN ONE MILE OF PARADISE. THE RAILROAD WAS A PROFOUND INFLUENCE ON THE SURROUNDING TOWNS. BECAUSE OF THE SHORT DISTANCE TO THE RAILROAD, RESIDENCES AND BUSINESSES BEGAN MOVING NORTHEASTWARD TO BE CLOSER TO THE LINE. BY THE EARLY 1900s, “NEW” PARADISE WAS WELL UNDER WAY WITH CHURCHES, HOTELS, A NEW CITY WELL AND SHOPS. BY 1927, MANY OF THE COTTON CROPS HAD BEEN DESTROYED AND “OLD” PARADISE CAME TO AN END. THE ONLY REMAINING STRUCTURE IN OLD TOWN PARADISE IS A PRIVATE HOME BUILT BY CONFEDERATE LIEUTENANT WILLIAM HALL JAY, WHO IS BURIED IN THE PARADISE CEMETERY. THE HOME SITS ON A CORNER JUST SOUTH OF THE OLD TOWN SQUARE AND IS A CONSTANT REMINDER OF AN EARLIER TIME. (2014)
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
One of Wise County's earliest settlers, O.H.P. Read, made his home here in 1858 in a community first called Eldorado, where William M. Anderson opened a general store and surveyor Ben Banks laid out a town square. Renamed Paradise after a post office naming conflict in 1876, the town shifted northeast in the 1890s to be near the new Rock Island rail line, and "old" Paradise faded away by 1927 as its cotton crops failed. Today only a home built by Confederate Lt. William Hall Jay remains on the old square.
Why it matters
Old Town Paradise is a classic railroad-orphaned settlement, one of countless Texas communities that lived, moved, and died by the reach of the rails.
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Related people
- · O.H.P. Read
- · William M. Anderson
- · Ben Banks
Themes & tags
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