Tom Randolph
Sherman, Grayson County, Texas
Marker Inscription
(Nov. 13, 1854 - Jan. 8, 1918) Tennessee native Thomas Randolph came to Grayson County with his family in 1859. Groomed to be a businessman, he was invited at age 19 to join C. C. Binkley at the Merchants and Planters Bank, which grew into a very prosperous and influential financial institution. Randolph served as bank president from 1886 until his death. In that capacity, he helped attract new industry and business to Sherman, and worked to establish the city's first hospital. He also served as Chairman of the Board of the National Bank of Commerce of St. Louis, Missouri, but always considered Sherman his home. Recorded - 2002
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
Thomas Randolph arrived in Grayson County as a boy in 1859 and, groomed for business, joined the Merchants and Planters Bank at nineteen. Rising to president in 1886, he led the bank for more than three decades, using its influence to draw new industry to Sherman and to help found the city's first hospital. Though he also chaired a St. Louis bank's board, Sherman remained his home until his death in 1918.
Why it matters
Randolph embodies the small-city banker of the Gilded Age, whose institutions financed the growth of hospitals, industry, and civic life across a rising America.
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Related people
- · Thomas Randolph
- · C. C. Binkley
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Thomas Jefferson Shannon
Sherman, TX
Thomas Jefferson Shannon arrived in Texas in 1839, when it was still an independent republic, and settled in the area that became Grayson County in 1845. As the county's first state legislator he pushed to move the county seat to present-day Sherman and donated the land for the townsite, earning the nickname "Father of Sherman." A pioneering cattleman, he even imported Durham cattle said to be a gift from Queen Victoria in 1848, while his daughter Julia named the town's first streets.
Andrew Hanson
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Andrew Hanson, born in Schleswig-Holstein and emigrating to America in 1872, reached Texas in 1878 and the next year opened Sherman's first bakery. Over 35 years he built the Star Bakery into a local institution, introducing the town's first delivery service and its first commercially made ice cream. His parents and brothers followed him from Denmark, and the family settled permanently in Sherman.
Judge C. C. Binkley
Sherman, TX
Christopher Columbus Binkley reached Texas in 1852 and became law partner to Sherman's first mayor before serving as district judge from 1870 to 1874. A longtime Republican national committeeman during Reconstruction, he founded and led the Merchants and Planters Bank, making him the financial anchor of Grayson County. At his death in 1886 he was hailed as Sherman's leading citizen.
B. H. Zauk
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Bruno H. Zauk crossed from Germany alone at sixteen and, by 1876, had founded Sherman's first cigar factory; he became a naturalized citizen in 1880. He parlayed his success into extensive landholdings in West Texas and Oklahoma and served as vice president of banks in Sherman and Bennington, Oklahoma.