Photograph of the State Historical Survey Committee marker for Austin College in Sherman, Texas. Text: Oldest college in Texas operating under original charter. Founded in 1849 by the Presbytery of Brazos under leadership of Daniel Baker. Named for Stephen F. Austin, Father of Texas. Opened in Huntsville with Sam Houston, Anson Jones, and Henderson Yoakum - Texas statesmen - among original trustees. Bell donated by Houston hangs in present chapel. For years competence in Greek and Latin was required for admittance. In 1855 opened the first law school in state, and became the first college in Texas to award graduate degrees in 1856. Had the first chapter in Texas of any national fraternity (Phi Delta Theta). Remained open during Civil War although most students joined Confederate Army. Post-war problems and epidemics caused move to Sherman in 1876. Oldest building is Luckett Hall (1908). The first building on the campus having been destroyed by arson in 1913. Erected first college Y.M.C.A. building west of the Mississippi River, 1911. In World War I, cooperated with the student army training corps and admitted first coeds. In World War II, aided army air training corps. Founded to serve youth in pioneer families, college new …

Photograph of the Texas Historical Commission marker for Diamond Horse Ranch in Whitesboro, Texas. Text: Founded 1850 by James R. and John Diamond, joined later by their brother George, who had founded paper that today is Houston "Post". Station, 1858-1861, on Butterfield Stage Line. The Diamond brothers were political leaders and active in Texas Frontier Defense and masonry. James is buried here.

Photograph of the Texas Historical Commission marker for Central Christian Church in Sherman, Texas. Text: This congregation traces its beginnings to the late 1850s, when pioneer minister Benjamin Franklin Hall came to this area to preach and organize a church. Early meeting places included a brush arbor and a union meeting house at the local Masonic Hall. A sanctuary was built in 1875 on the corner of Montgomery and Houston Streets. A site on the corner of Travis and Cherry Streets was acquired in 1895, and a new church structure was erected in 1905. A part of Grayson County history, this church has served the people of Sherman for over 130 years.

Photograph of the Texas Historical Commission marker for Old Town of Cannon in Van Alstyne, Texas. Text: Founded 1852 by Elijah Cannon, who came from South Caroline with his children and slaves to develop 700 acres of land. Family established a church, cotton gin, grist mill, wagon factory. By 1885 town had an academy and 400 people. Bypassed by Houston & Texas Central Railroad, it declined rapidly in the 1890s.

Photograph of the Texas Historical Commission marker for Jabez and Harriet Haning in Howe, Texas. Text: Jabez Haning (1827-1883) came to Grayson County with his family in 1846. In the 1850s Jabez Haning obtained a grant of 320 acres of land from the Peters Colony. His land was located about nine miles south of the town of Sherman. Harriet Campbell (1834-1880) and Jabez Haning were married in 1854 and established a farm. In 1873 the Houston & Texas Central Railway established a line south of Sherman. The route went through the Haning property, and they donated land for a town site in 1876. The town was named Howe, probably in honor of a railroad official. (1997)

Photograph of the Texas Historical Commission marker for Jesse P. Loving in Sherman, Texas. Text: Missouri native Jesse "Jess" P. Loving came to Texas with his family in 1847. They settled first near relatives in Denton County, and moved to Sherman in Grayson County, and moved to Sherman in Grayson County in 1852. Loving married Lydia Ellen Bomar in 1859. A Confederate veteran, he became a prominent civic leader, serving multiple terms as county treasurer and state representative. In 1879 Loving was the driving force behind the establishment of the old settlers association of Grayson County. Jesse and Lydia Loving were charter members of the Houston Street Christian Church and were the parents of nine children. Recorded - 2000.

Photograph of the Texas Historical Commission marker for First Christian Church in Van Alstyne, Texas. Text: The predecessor of this church, the first Disciples of Christ congregation in Texas, was founded during the winter of 1841-1842 at McKinney's Landing in Bowie county near the Texas-Arkansas border. Collin McKinney, pioneer settler and signer of the Texas Declaration of Independence, was the leader of the Bowie county congregation, which had worshipped informally since 1831. Between 1844 and 1846 the group moved to Liberty (later called "Mantua"), three miles southwest of here. In 1846, under McKinney and J.B. Wilmeth, the congregation was reorganized as the "Liberty Church" with eighteen members. In 1854, the First Mantua Christian Church was built. In this early structure a rail in the center aisle separated men from women. No offering plate was passed - donations were placed on the communion table. Members constructed their own "hymn books" which doubled as souvenir and recipe books. Founders of churches in many cities including Galveston, Sherman, and Glen Rose were members of the Mantua Church. In 1887 the Mantua Group organized the church on this site in the infant town of Van Alstyne, located on the Houston & Texas Central Railroad. …

Photograph of the Texas Historical Commission marker for Van Alstyne in Van Alstyne, Texas. Text: The town of Mantua was established about 3 miles southwest of here in 1854. Mantua prospered but was unexpectedly bypassed in 1873 when the Houston and Texas Central Railway (H&TC) extended its track through this area instead. That year a depot was built and a post office established in the new town named for Maria Van Alstyne, the widow of W.A. Van Alstyne who had been a principal stockholder of the H&TC. Churches, businesses, and people of Mantua and other area towns moved here to be near the railroad. Van Alstyne was incorporated and a newspaper established in 1883. Columbia College was founded in 1889. Van Alstyne contained banks, schools, hotels, an opera house, a literary club, and electric service. by 1900, when cotton and other farm production dominated the local economy. Interurban transportation began in 1908. The local "Grays" semi-pro baseball team, established about 1902, played for many decades and produced a number of major league players. Many local businesses, churches, and social organizations trace their origins to Mantua and 19th century Van Alstyne. The historic downtown area, the former site of popular Saturday …

Photograph of the Texas Historical Commission marker for First United Methodist Church of Van Alstyne in Van Alstyne, Texas. Text: Outgrowth of Liberty Class, formed 1847 for bible study and worship, in log cabin of Jim Creager (1.25 mi. s.) by the Rev. Joab Biggs, of the Dallas Methodist circuit, and M.F. Cole. In 1855, after a rainstorm that detained quarterly conference delegates to listen to an all-night sermon, the Rev. Y.S. McKinney preached for three weeks and had 60 conversions. The enlarged class moved to Mantua, where it built a frame chapel on the town square and was renamed Mt. Zion Methodist Church. At founding of Van Alstyne on Houston & Texas Central Railroad in 1873, Mt. Zion moved its building into town, to a site now in Van Alstyne Cemetery. By 1890 membership exceeded 400. The congregation in 1893 moved again, erecting a larger building at Waco and Jefferson Streets, and changing name to First Methodist Church. In this sanctuary in 1894 there was organized the first district Epworth League of the Southern Methodist Church. Here in 1912 ex-President Theodore Roosevelt gave an address, and in 1917 one of Texas' earliest Boy Scout Troops was formed. Present sanctuary …

Photograph of the Texas Historical Commission marker for Courthouses of Grayson County in Sherman, Texas. Text: From pioneer log cabins to native Texas limestone structure, Grayson County courthouses have taken many shapes and sizes since the county's establishment in 1846. The first courthouse, a frame building on bald prairie a few miles west of the current county seat, was completed in 1847 for a cost of $232. It served for one year, until Sherman was relocated to this site, and the commissioners court ordered the construction of a log cabin on the southeast corner of the square. Neither it, nor the third courthouse (a two-story frame building on the north side of the square), nor the 1853 brick fourth courthouse were in service for any substantial period of time. An 1859 courthouse, intended to provide the county with a large and structurally sound facility, fell into disuse by the early 1870s. Thus, by the time the Houston & Texas Central Railroad reached Sherman in 1873, Grayson County had seen five courthouses in fewer than 40 years. The coming of the railroad was a boon to the local economy, and the availability of better building materials led to the construction of …

Photograph of the Texas Historical Commission marker for Dannel Funeral Home in Sherman, Texas. Text: After training in the mortuary sciences in Chicago, John C. Dannel moved with his new wife, Flossie Louella Wade, to Sherman, Texas, where he purchased the Sherman Undertaking Company. John's father had owned and operated an undertaking parlor in Illinois, where John was born, and he followed his father into the business. The Dannels' first funeral parlor in Sherman was located at the corner of Walnut and Houston Streets, but the John C. Dannel Undertaking Company, as it was then known, moved into a renovated pool hall on the south side of the courthouse square in 1913. Dannel introduced the first motorized hearse to the area in 1917, but he was sued by the local livery stable which had until that time supplied horses and carriages for funerals. Dannel eventually won the case after a public fight that played out in the local newspaper. In 1923, Dannel hired architect John Tullock to design and build a structure dedicated specifically as a funeral home, one of the earliest such structures in the area. The building featured bedrooms for the family, as well as staterooms and a …

Photograph of the Texas Historical Commission marker for North-South Railway Connection in Denison, Texas. Text: On December 24, 1872, a Missouri, Kansas, & Texas (Katy) railroad train carrying 100 passengers arrived here in the newly established railroad town of Denison. Its arrival marked the culmination of years of effort by the Katy to construct a rail line from the border of Kansas and the Indian Territory (Oklahoma) south to the Red River and into Texas. The Katy earned this lucrative right-of-way by being first in a national competition to construct a rail line from St. Louis south to the Indian Territory. Several months later the unheralded connection of the nation's first north-to-south rail service west of the Mississippi River was established here when a Texas central railroad train pulled into Denison from the south on March 10, 1873. In a brief ceremony to commemorate the occasion Denison Mayor L. S. Owings addressed a small crowd by reading the contents of a telegram he had dispatched to Galveston, Houston, New York, Boston, Chicago, St. Louis, and San Francisco proclaiming his town's new role as a key link in the nation's network of rail lines. With this connection passengers and shippers could …

Photograph of the Texas Historical Commission marker for First Christian Church of Howe in Howe, Texas. Text: In the 1840s, settlers moved to this area as part of the Peters Colony. In the early 1870s, plans for the Houston and Texas Central Railroad coming through the settlement brought new residents to the community, known as Summit. Renamed for railroad official F.M. Howe, the town of Howe was established circa 1872. The same year, several residents met to organize what would become the first Christian Church of Howe. Founders and charter members included George Miller, J.A. Hughes, Henry Stevens, J.A. Matthews, W.T. Copeland, Si Collins, C.E. Wheat, L.M. Davis, J.C. McBee, Jim McCoy, and John Grigg, and members held their first Sunday school classes and worship services in homes, schools, and other buildings. The congregation grew and purchased this site in 1893 from John W. and Minnie B. Simpson. The church, led by trustees Charlie Hanna, J.W. Bearden, and John and Frank Grigg, constructed a building on the site. The structure was one of four Protestant sanctuaries constructed in Howe during that period. Each had similar vernacular designs showing Victorian influences. Features included fishscale shingling, steep-pitched gable roofs and neo-Gothic details. …

Photograph of the Texas Historical Commission marker for Mantua Masonic Lodge No. 209, A.F. & A.M. in Van Alstyne, Texas. Text: The organizational meeting for this masonic lodge was held on Feb. 7, 1857, on the second story of H. N. Walcott's store building in the village of Mantua (2 mi. sw). With District Deputy Grand Master J.J. Harrison officiating, the first meeting was attended by J.M. Enloe, W.A. Portman, J.L. Leslie, W.M. Akens, A.J. McDonough, A.C. White, H.N. Walcott, J.L. Lovejoy, G.W. Strother, and J.S. Stewart. Other charter members of the lodge included younger Scott McKinney, who had laid out the townsite several years earlier, and James W. Throckmorton, who later served as governor of Texas. A two-story lodge building was completed in 1859. The first masons met on the upper floor, while the first story housed a private school, the Mantua Seminary. After Van Alstyne was established on the Houston and Texas Central Railroad in 1872, most of the businesses and other establishments in Mantua, including the masonic lodge, moved to the new town. The lodge members held meetings in various locations until 1898, when they purchased the Carter Building on the town square. In 1976 the lodge …

Photograph of the Texas Historical Commission marker for Peter W. Grayson in Sherman, Texas. Text: Peter Wagener Grayson was born in 1788 in Bardstown, Virginia (later part of Kentucky) to Benjamin and Caroline (Taylor) Grayson, members of a politically prominent family. He served in the War of 1812 and worked in Louisville as an attorney, businessman and legislator. Well-spoken in legal matters and also a poet, he nevertheless amassed substantial debt and privately combated mental illness. In 1830, Grayson wrote to Stephen F. Austin about acquiring land in Texas, and by 1832 he had established a plantation near Matagorda. He also became a friend and advisor to Austin. During Austin's imprisonment in Mexico City in 1834, Grayson and Spencer Jack went there with petitions in hopes of freeing the Empresario. In December 1834, they secured Austin's bail, although he was not free to leave until the following summer. Settlers began preparations for revolution soon after Austin returned to Texas, and Grayson worked with him to outline an independent government. Grayson also served as president of the Council of War and Aide-de-Camp to both Austin and Gen. Edward Burleson. After Texas' victory at San Jacinto on April 21, 1836, Grayson acted …