Whitewright
Whitewright, Grayson County, Texas
Marker Inscription
Early settlers in this part of Grayson County established communities at Orangeville (4 mi. E), Pilot Grove ( 4 mi. S), and Kentucky Town (3 mi. W). In 1878, after the Missouri, Kansas, and Texas (MKT) railroad built a line southeast from Denison to this site, a new town was created and named for William Whitewright (1825-1898), a railroad official and vice president of the Union Trust Company of New York, the railroad's financial backer. Immediately upon the new town's founding, former citizens of Orangeville, Pilot Grove, and Kentucky Town moved to Whitewright. A post office was established in 1878, along with numerous homes and businesses. By 1894 the town boasted schools, churches, a newspaper, a college, and community organizations, as well as railroad depots, cotton gins, restaurants, drugstores, grocery stores, wagon yards and livery stables, lumberyards, hardware stores, blacksmith shops, and numerous other businesses. Serious fires in 1904 and 1911 almost destroyed the central business district, but the citizens soon rebuilt. The city of Whitewright no longer has passenger rail service, but it continues its role as an important marketing center for this area of Grayson County.
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
When the Missouri, Kansas & Texas railroad pushed a line southeast from Denison in 1878, it created a brand-new town on the empty prairie and named it for William Whitewright, a New York railroad official and financier. Residents of nearby Orangeville, Pilot Grove, and Kentucky Town promptly abandoned their settlements and moved to the tracks. Within sixteen years Whitewright boasted schools, churches, a college, a newspaper, cotton gins, and a full range of businesses, rebuilding briskly after major fires in 1904 and 1911.
Why it matters
Whitewright is a textbook example of how the railroads redrew the map of 19th-century Texas, draining older communities to raise new towns beside the rails.
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Related people
- · William Whitewright
Themes & tags
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