Bawl Began Farmersville
Published in The Farmersville Times, but unknown date.
Written by Bob Poole.
A Christmas Eve saloon brawl is credited with the birth of the town of Farmersville, according to a history of the town written by Charles J. Rike.
Sugar Hill, a frontier town two and a half miles away from Farmersville, was the first community here, until a shooting at a saloon in 1854, killed several participants. Farmersville began when residents moved from the early trading center after the brawl.
Sugar Hill was established in 1845 when Walter B. Yeary established a store there. The early merchant handled such staples as sugar, coffee, whiskey, lead, powders and other necessities. It received its name because once sugar was delivered several days before other goods, and the merchant only had sugar to sell.
The settlement consisted of one or two stores and a saloon. Moses Jones was the “doctor” and Baptist preacher there, and operated an early day grist mill.
Farmersville was incorporated on June 2, 1873, with John S. Rike its first mayor. The board of alderman included James Church, Ben King, John Murchison, Tom Tatum and J.P. Utt. Jeff Hines was city marshal, and Sam R. Hamilton was postmaster.
The town’s population grew to 230 by 1880.
The earliest settlement of Farmersville in the 1850’s boasted of several stores. The first stores established in 1850 were Pitt Chisum and J.E. Sherwood, a general merchandise and grocery store, and a general merchandise and saloon operated by Mack Henslee.
Dr. Harvey M. Markham, the town’s first doctor came in 1855. He was the first doctor in Collin County.
The settlement was named in 1857 by Jonnie I. Hendrex for the thriving community.
The IOOF Lodge No. 228 was organized here in 1875, with charter members being Dr. A.H. Neathery, J.A. Aston, C.T. Tatum, L.D. Kitchens, L.H. Marble, Thomas Glass, Henry Carver, J.T. Howard, W.R. House, W.J. Boulware, Joe Fleming (Grand Master), R.M. Chapmen, L.E. Bumpass, D.K. Allison and I.H. Harless.
The Farmersville Times printed its first issue on March 23, 1885, and is still in existence to present day under management of Bob and Tom Poole. A second Farmersville newspaper, the Sentinel, was established in 1894 and was discontinued in 1912. It was owned and operated by John Harden.
The Exchange Bank, a private bank, was organized in 1885, and operated for two years. In 1887 the First National Bank was organized and consolidated with the exchange. The bank is still in operation in a new building west of the post office.
In 1886, the struggling village of 400 persons suffered a $26,000 loss because of fire. The fire started when an oil lamp exploded at the Tidal Wave Saloon on the south side of the square. More than 20 individuals and firms were listed as suffering heavy losses in the blaze.
The Masonic Temple and Aston Building were built of local rocks and stone in 1888. They are distinguished as being the only two buildings remaining with exteriors unchanged from the original design.
Saloons were prohibited in 1898, so Happy Hollow sprung up northwest of the town. It was the location for two or three saloons, a grocery store and a blacksmith shop.
The S.A. Telegraph and Telephone installed the first phones in Farmersville in 1899. The manager of the exchange was a dentist, Dr. Hancock, in connection with his office. Miss Maude Marsh was the first operator. By January 1901, there were 69 phones in use here.
Dial phones came to Farmersville in 1940, the first in Collin County. Two letter, five-number dialing began in 1958, and direct long distance dialing came in 1971.
Farmersville’s second bank the Farmers and Merchants National Bank, was incorporated in 1900, with W.B. Yeary as president and W.M. Windom as cashier. It was merged with First National Bank in 1929.
By 1900, Farmersville was the center of the cotton producing area, and that year there were 12,000 bales of cotton, weighing 500 pounds, bought from the wagon on the square and sold
A second fire disaster hit Farmersville October 5, 1905, when fire started in the Neathery and Bumpass Hardware Store about 8 p.m. and burned through the night. Destroyed buildings on the east side of the square included First National Bank, Shields Dry Goods, Neathery and Bumpass Hardware, Neathery Dry Goods, Hope Drug Store, R.L. Russell Jewelry, Jim Chindining Café and the L.T. Norwood Book Store, Notions and Dry Goods Company.
This was the first fire after Farmersville had purchased a new fire wagon, several thousand feet of new hose and other firefighting equipment. However, the new hose was too small to fit the newly installed hydrants. Firefighting equipment was sent by the towns of McKinney and Greenville to help.
Ed Stewart owned one of the first automobiles in town, a two-cylinder Brush, and J.B. Honaker had a Pope-Harter a one-cylinder, five passenger car. George W. Rike owned the first electric lighted and starter car in 1912, a five-passenger Reo.
The first municipal water system was started in 1903 with the drilling of a deep well and the erection of a standpipe which was completed in 1905. Farmersville was the first city in the North Texas Water District to receive water from the new Lavon Lake in 1956.
Sewers were installed here in the early 1920’s, brick pavement came in the mid 1920’s and gas was installed in 1927.
1926 marked the end of a city poll tax of $3 per person or three days of street work as a penalty for neglecting to pay.
Farmersville was the first Collin County municipality to own its own electric facilities. Municipal lights were turned on the first time on Feb. 19, 1930.
Onions were the money crop in Farmersville during the 1920-30. Farmersville shipped more than 1,000 cars of onions a year on rail through the late 1930’s. The first North Texas Onion Festival was held here in 1935. The festival was suspended during World War II.
Education began in Farmersville in the 1860’s when Mrs. Brickie Wells was one of, if not the first, school teacher here.
A few of the schools before 1900 were the Rock Quarry Academy, Arnold, Aston Chapel, Boggy, Climax, Brushy, Rose Hill, Spring Hill, Snow Hill, Liberty, Aleo, Cow Skin and Mesquite.
The first school building was a two-room building on Central Avenue in the northeast part of town, which later became the Looney-Dowlin Male and Female Academy.
That academy opened in 1885, and operated until the first public school system built the new red brick school on College Street in the early 1890’s.
The red brick school was replaced in 1912 with a gray brick building at the cost of $20,000, and served as grade school until 1952. Tatum Elementary School was erected in 1950 at a cost of $90,000. The high school was built in 1924, at a cost of $50,000, and was replaced with a new building in 1973.
A deluge of rain in June, 1975 was blamed for the collapse of a portion of the roof of the (???) Farmersville Middle School, with damage estimated at $100,000. Voters approved a $290,000 bond issue to build a new middle school and high school vocational building. The new buildings are under construction now.
Farmersville’s population had reached 2,311 by 1970.
