History of Hopkins Co. TX - J. C. McDonald

Submitted by:  June E. Tuck  <jparks@neto.com>

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From the historical files of June E. Tuck, who does not validate or
dispute any historical facts in the article.

(One must remember when reading the locations of some of the businesses
and buildings, like the City Hall and Sulphur Springs State Bank, was not
located, when this article was written, where they are located today. J.
E. T.)

Historical Information Of Hopkins County

by J. C. McDonald - 1928

(Edited)

Nobody knows who was the first white man that explored this part of the
state. In 1718, the French governor of Louisiana sent old Bernard de la
Harpe with an expedition up the Red River to explore the country, making
friends with the Indians, and to do what he could towards opening trade
with the Spaniards in New Mexico, and it is pretty well established that
for some time he had his headquarters in Bowie county, and that his men
traded with the Indians on the headwaters of the Sabine. More than likely
some of these Frenchmen first saw this territory.

From the treaty with France in 1803, until the treaty with Spain in 1819,
it was generally believed and considered that the Louisiana Purchase
embraced the territory contained in the watershed of the Red River as
well as that on the north side of the river. On this supposition,
settlers pushed up the Red River and across from Arkansas, and
established trading posts and settlements from Texarkana west to about
where Denison now stands. This watershed crosses Hopkins County about
three miles south of Sulphur Springs, but until Lamar ran the Cherokees
out in 1839, it was considered too dangerous to try to make a settlement
south of the Sulphurs. On the south, the main Cherokee settlements in
Smith and Cherokee Counties proved a barrier to settlement from that
side. But no sooner was the power of the Indians broken than the ever
restless pioneers began to explore the country. Clarksville was a
considerable village by that time, and the east end of what was then Red
River County had many settlers, so that it is more than probable that
hunting parties from these settlements were the first Americans to
explore Hopkins county.

The First Land Survey

In every country there is always some man more daring than the rest and
so it was with this county. In 1835, old Lovick P. Dikes skipped over
millions of acres of unoccupied land and located a survey just northwest
of Sulphur Springs. It corners with the northwest corner of the town and
lies back towards White Oak. The city cemetery is on the southeast corner
of it. The patent was issued to him by the Republic in 1838, but it was
surveyed before the Republic was established, and is, therefore, in
Spanish, being the only Spanish record in the county. I have never been
able to find anything of the history of this man, except the record of
his land survey.

Col. James Reily

When the war of the Texas Revolution closed, the government had no money
to pay its soldiers, and in lieu thereof issued land script in payment of
what it owed them. This script was transferable, and as land was of
little value many people sold their script for what they could get for
it. Col. James Reily bought much of this script and located many surveys
in what afterwards became Hopkins County. His surveys lay from about
eight miles east and two miles north of Sulphur Springs south to the Wood
County line and west to the Hunt County line. At one time he owned
100,200 acres in this county. These surveys were made from 1841 to about
1845. He sold quite a lot of this land during his life time, and his wife
sold the balance after his death. His name is perpetuated in the county
by the village of Reily Springs.

The First White Settler

It is certain that the settlers of Red River County knew the country
south of the Sulphurs prior to 1840, but they did not dare to cross it
for settlement until Tarrant and Smith had driven out the last of the
Indians, and Hopkins County remained without a permanent settler until
the latter part of 1842. During this autumn William and Harvey Hargrave
came to Clarksville from Indiana with a caravan of eighteen people
looking for a place to settle. They fell into the hands of the young
Selon Stout, son of the famous Henry Stout. Selon had been a scout and a
buffalo hunter for Houston^Òs army and he knew the country from the Red
River to the Gulf. He advised them to cross the Sulphurs and settle at
the Bluff in what was then the eastern part of Lamar County. He guided
them to the location, and thus the first settlement in the county was
made December 1842, at Sulphur Bluff.

John Bivins

When the Hargraves had settled south of the Sulphur Bluff there was one
white man living in the county. A man named John Bivins lived about five
miles east of Sulphur Bluff. He disappeared and no one ever knew what
became of him, but it was believed that he was either killed or captured
by Indians. He lived at a place that had formerly been an Indian
encampment, and it is just possible that he joined a band of Indians as
it is that they killed him.

More Settlers

After the Hargraves had settled south of the Sulphurs, other settlers
came in rapid succession. The Indian menace had been removed and settlers
also pushed up from the south and from the east, and in a very short time
there were scattered settlements all over the county. The first wedding
in county was on October 16, 1843, when Thomas C. Clark and Miss
Elizabeth Hargrave where married. There was no minister in the county,
and Abner McKenzie, the justice of the peace at Clarksville rode over on
horseback to perform the ceremony. The first death in the county was that
of W.W. Hargrave in the same year, he being buried at the old McFall
cemetery near Nelta. Settlers came so rapidly that when the state was
admitted to the Union in 1845 there were enough people to ask for the
organization of the county.

Northeast Texas was not settled by contractors like South Texas, and on
this account its history has not been so well preserved. In 1825 Frost
Thorn obtained a contract between Hayden Edwards Colony and the Red
River, but nothing came of it.

In 1826, Gen. Arthur Wavel, an Englishman, with Ben Milam as an
associate, was granted all of the territory between Sulphur and the Red
River, and was to settle 400 families. They actually settled a few
families on the east end of their grant, and it was business for these
settlers that took Milam to Mexico when he was thrown in prison, made his
escape, joined the Texas army, and was killed at San Antonio in 1828.

John Cameron was given a second contract embracing a strip twenty leagues
wide, parallel to Red River, from the west end of Wavels Colony to the
102 degree of longitude.

None of these grants had any direct effect on the settlement of this
immediate section of the state, but after the Texas Revolution the
settlers in South Texas conceived the idea of making grants to
contractors and filling up the country to the north and west of
themselves with settlers as a barrier between themselves and the Indians.
Congress passed such a law, and in 1841 President Lamar issued a contract
to W. S. Peters and others for what became the famous Peters Colony which
embraced a large part of Grayson, Collin, Dallas, Cooke, Montague, Wise,
Parker and several other counties to west and south. And in 1844,
President Houston signed a contract with Charles Fenton Mercer and
associates for a territory adjoining Peter^Òs Colony on the east. An arm
of Mercer^Òs territory, extending into Hopkins County, and comprises the
only portion of the county that was ever definitely in a colonial grant.
The old colony line comes through the city of Greenville east to about
the town of Brashear and then runs south. Practically all of the land
comprises in this corner had already been head righted by Col. James
Reily, consequently no grants were made in this county under Mercer^Òs
contract. Mercer brought in very few colonists, but he and Peters each
carried on extensive advertising campaigns which turned the eyes and
minds of many people this way. The Peters company settled many people on
their grant, and as a result, while Northeast Texas was filling up with
people who came on their own accord, the territory farther west was being
settled at the same time, and Hopkins, Hunt, Collin, Grayson, Dallas and
Denton counties were all organized in the same year of 1846.

Some County Geography

When the Republic was established and counties began to take shape, all
of the territory north of the Red River watershed and from the east line
of the Republic, nearly to the setting sun, was considered Red River
County. East of the Trinity and south of this watershed was Nacogdoches.
Thus our territory lying across this water shed was partly in Red River
and partly in Nacogdoches. In 1837, Congress cut off the west end of Red
River and made Fannin. Then in 1840 it cut off the east end and made
Bowie, and again cut off the west end and made Lamar. This new county of
Lamar extended south to the north line of Nacogdoches and thus included a
part of Hopkins. In 1841, Congress ordered that all of Red River, Bowie
and Lamar south of Sulphur should be organized into a county to be called
Paschal and that the county seat should be located at Dangerfield. This
county was actually in operation for a while but was knocked out the next
year by a decision of the Supreme Court because the law creating it had
specified that it should not have a representative in Congress. The
territory therefore reverted back to the original counties. When Texas
was admitted to the Union the people of this section applied for the
organization of a county, and by an act of the First Legislature,
approved March 25, 1846,it was ordered that a new county to be called
Hopkins should be organized, beginning at the southwest corner of Lamar
County, thence south thirty miles, thence east to a point directly south
of the southeast corner of Lamar County, thence north thirty miles to
said southeast corner, and thence west with the south line of Lamar
County to the place of beginning. This seems to be a rather strange
description since a large part of the territory was being taken from the
south end of Lamar County, but the new lines for Lamar County had already
been determined. This arrangement placed the territory between the two
Sulphurs, half in Hopkins and half in Lamar. The bottoms of the streams
were impassable during the winter months, so that the people could not
get out of their county seats, and as soon as they felt that they had
sufficient population they begun to talk of a county of their own. This
desire was intensified by the removal of the county seat of Hopkins
County from Tarrant to Sulphur Springs, which put White Oak Creek and
another bad bottom between them and the county seat. During
Reconstruction days some action was taken by the military government
towards granting and organizing the new county, and July 30, 1870 an act
was passed by the Legislature creating the county of Delta which should
comprise all of the territory between North and South Sulphur from their
junction west to the east line of Fannin County. This took from Hopkins
all of its territory north of South Sulphur, and from Lamar all of its
territory south of North Sulphur. Hopkins still had an irregularly shaped
corner north of Sulphur below the junction, but this was given back to
Lamar by act of the Twelfth Legislature in 1871. Rains county was
organized by an act of the Legislature approved June 9, 1870, and it was
given a corner out of the southwest corner of Hopkins County. There have
been some disputes as to the location of lines of the county,
particularly on the south, but the above are the only changes of the
importance that have been made in the territory of the county.

The Location of Towns and the County Seat

The first settlers of Hopkins county were in the main rural people, but
they soon began to establish trading points in different parts of the
county. Of coarse, Sulphur Bluff was the first, but at that time goods
had to be hauled by ox wagon either from Shreveport on the Red River or
from Little Rock on the Arkansas, which made merchandising almost
prohibitive, and the settlers were left pretty largely to their own
resources. In 1845, it was found that boats could come up to the present
site of Jefferson by following the channel of Cypress Bayou, and in a
very short time Jefferson became the trading point for all of Northeast
Texas. Stores were established at Sulphur Bluff; at the Black Jack Grove,
now known as Cumby; Cold Hill, now known as Bonanza; at Carroll^Òs
Prairie, now Como; at Bucksnort, now extinct; at Cornersville; the Twin
Groceries near where Saltillo now stand; Veals Store, later Lollars
Store, about eight miles east of Sulphur Springs, near Weaver; at the
Sulphur Springs; at Tarrant; and possibly at other places - the ones
named being established during the first fifteen years after the first
settlement in the county. It will be noted that a majority of these
trading points were in the south half of the county, but this was due to
the fact that the main Jefferson Highway and two of its branches
penetrated this part of the county. Pickton, Weaver, and Ridgeway were
established when the railroads were built, and Brashear was laid off when
Col. Mahoney cut up the Wise Ranch.

Section 3 of the act creating the county specified that James E. Hopkins,
Robert Hargrave, James Ward, William Wilkins and ___ Barker be
commissioners to find the center of the county and to select two places
within three miles of the center and to order an election to determine
which of the two should be the location of the county seat which should
be called Tarrant. The act does not so state, but this name was given in
honor of General Edward Tarrant of Bowie County who had done such valiant
service in defending the settlers from the Indians. They determined the
center by actual survey, and two of the Hopkins^Ò offered to donate the
land for the county seat. An election was held in which 110 votes were
cast - Eldredge Hopkins^Ò proposition winning by a vote of 50 to 60. This
location was on the high prairie just north of where Rawson^Òs store now
stands - the Sulphur Springs and Birthright road passing through the
location of the old town. The land (now) is mostly owned by Shed Sickles
and Mrs. John Chester. A town was laid off, lots were sold, stores were
built, a court house and jail were erected as soon as possible, and
Tarrant became quite a thriving village. Eldredge Hopkins built a hotel
and was the town^Òs most prominent citizen. It has always been claimed
that it was for him that the county was named, but some of the early
settlers dispute this, claiming that it was named for the Hopkins family
and not for Eldredge Hopkins individually.

When the county was organized and Tarrant selected as the county seat,
there were probably 500 to 600 people in the county. Not much taxes could
be collected, consequently there were no funds with which to build a
courthouse. It seems that at that time there was an old law on the
statute books forbidding outsiders to being cattle into the state for
grazing purposes, but one Pleasants or Pleasance from Louisiana,
disregarding this law, drove three hundred head to pasture on the
prairies of Hopkins County. These cattle were confiscated and sold and a
courthouse and jail were erected at Tarrant with the proceeds. The
courthouse was a frame building and the jail was built of hewed logs.
When they had a particularly bad prisoner or one that was likely to be
rescued by his friends, they took him to Clarksville where they had a
brick jail.

Tarrant became a thriving village and at its best had a population of
about 300 people. The first Masonic Lodge in the county was organized
there in 1851. This was the parent lodge of all the lodges in this part
of the state. In April 1852, they recommended the petition for a lodge at
Greenville; in June 1852, they recommended a lodge at Quitman; in January
1854, they recommended a lodge in Black Jack Grove, now Cumby, and made
the same recommendation in September 1855; in August1855 (or 1856, paper
torn), they recommended a lodge at Veals Store or White Oak, Hopkins
County. This place was afterwards known as Lollars Store. It was about
eight miles east of Sulphur Springs on the Jefferson road. In June 1853,
a petition was filed for a lodge at Sulphur Springs but was refused
because only five miles from Tarrant and in a new and sparsely settled
section. The petition was renewed and the lodge recommended in December
1856. Sulphur Springs did not succeed in getting a dispensation on that
recommendation and in December 1857 another recommendation was made.

In 1854, a Mr. McKinney established a newspaper there but it was
published for only a short time. It was called "The Texas Star." A post
office was established at Tarrant, March 8, 1847, with R.R. Crook as
postmaster. The Masonic Lodge established a male academy, and afterwards
a female academy under the same teachers but with provision that the boys
and girls should be taught in separate classes. A mill was built and one
brick house was erected. This the only brick house that Tarrant ever had
was owned by Dr. Powhattan Smith. After his death Dr. E. P. Becton
married his widow and sold the building to Col. J. A. Weaver who tore the
building down and moved it to Sulphur Springs.

Tarrant bade fair to become quite a city, but natural causes often have
more to do with the location to towns than the will of legislators and it
was so in this case. Tarrant was beautifully located on a high prairie,
but north, south and east of it were Caney and White Oak (creeks) with
their wide and almost impassable bottoms. No highway could pass thru it,
and therein lay the cause of its death.

The Jefferson Highway

As soon as it was found, in 1845, that steamboats could come up Cypress
Bayou to where Jefferson now stands, a town immediately began to grow,
and it became the market and shipping point for all North Texas. Goods
had to be hauled on wagons, and as few roads had been laid out and almost
no bridges built, it was the rule to follow divides as far as possible in
order to avoid crossing creeks and rivers. Consequently the travel from
Dallas and that part of the state came northeast to Greenville crossing
the Sabine as near its headwaters as possible, and struck the divide
between the Red River and the Gulf Coastal Plain, straight east by Black
Jack Grove where Cumby now stands, on by the Sulphur Springs to Mt.
Pleasant, where it turned south to Dangerfield, and then east to
Jefferson. Later there was a branch road that left the main highway just
east of the Black Jack Grove and turned southeast passing just below
Reily Springs on by Bucksnort and Black Oak to Cornersville and Winnsboro
and back into the main highway at Daingerfield. This road followed the
general direction of the Main Caddo Trace. Still later another branch
left the main highway at Sulphur Springs, went southeast by Carrolls
Prairie, now Como, and on into the other branch at Cornersville.

No sooner had this been established as line of travel than "joints" began
to spring up along it at convenient places exactly like hamburger and
cold drink "joints" spring up along a highway these days. The exact date
that a store was established at any point can not be established at this
time, but very early there were stores at Black Jack Grove, Sulphur
Springs, Lollars Store, and the Twin Groceries, the latter being near
where Saltillo now stand. In all probability the oldest of these was
Lollars as it was a successor to Veals store which had a post office
called White Oak that was established in 1847. The post office at Black
Jack was established in 1848. The post office in at Sulphur Springs was
not established until 1854, but it had stores prior to that time. The
post office at Saltillo was not established until 1860, but the Twin
Groceries were much older than that. On the southern branch of the
highway, Dr. O. S. Davis had a store and a gin on the east bank of
Birk^Òs Creek and Bucksnort stood about two and one half miles east of
where Reily Springs now stands. Carrolls Prairie, now Como, was on the
middle branch of the highway, and the middle and the South branches came
together at Cornersville. This place was so named because it was in the
corner of the corner of the county (sic). >From the best information that
I can get, Wash Cole was the first settler at Black Jack (Grove), coming
there in1845; Ab Neatherly was the first settler at Sulphur Springs,
settling where Dr. Long and Mrs. Moelk now live, in 1846; and Ferdinand
Carroll was the first settler at Carrolls Prairie, settling there in
1845.

Sulphur Springs

The Mary Ann Bowlin Survey, the survey on which Sulphur Springs is built,
was patented to Col. James Riley, assignee, in 1841. In 1850, O. S. Davis
and Jackson Doyle bought most of the land on which the town in now built.
So far as I can find, Dr. O. S. Davis and his wife were the first
permanent settlers in the town. Dr. C. M. Houston and his family came in
1852 or 1853, and the Connallys about the same time. Ab Neatherly had
settled where Dr. Long and Mrs. Moelk now have their residence, in 1846,
but he did not live there so very long and took little or no part in the
affairs of the community.

The first beginning of the town was due to the fact that it was a good
camping place. At the time the old Jefferson Highway became a line of
travel, and until just a few years ago, there were hundreds of springs in
the old Spring lot which extended South for over one hundred yards from
where the stand pipe now stands. Some of these springs were strongly
impregnated with sulphur, therefore the name, Sulphur Springs. Of course,
being a good camping place, it was not long before somebody put up a
stand to sell supplies to the campers, and the best information that I
can get says that it was Eli Bibb who had the first little store in
Sulphur Springs. It was located on the highway , and there were possibly
other little "joints" opened, but the first real store seems to have been
opened by C. P. Connally and Matt Bullion on the lot where Sig.
Wachholder building occupied by the Olympia Confectioner no stands. This
store was opened in 1853.

Dr. O. S. Davis was a far-sighted and public spirited man, and very early
conceived the idea that a city should and would be built around the
sulphur springs. The town was never land out, according to a recorded
plan, but Dr. Davis seems to have mapped it in his mind from the very
start, and sold lots accordingly. Although the first general mercantile
business was on what is now the public squire, the town built first along
the highway on what is now Main Street. At the beginning of the Civil War
there was a string of shacks on both sides of the highway stretching from
what is now the pubic square nearly to the city limits. I do not mean
built up solid, but scattered along. There was also a building on the
corner where Mrs. Boyd^Òs building, occupied by Ridgeway Drug, stand now.

Of coarse the town was at stand still during the Civil War, but as soon
as the war was over it began to build rapidly. At the close of the war,
the United States government sent a company of soldiers to take charge of
affairs in this part of the state, and, on account of the inaccessibility
of Tarrant, they located their headquarters at Sulphur Springs. The army
occupied almost the entire block between South Davis and Magnolia Streets
East and West, and between Main and Connally North and South. They
enclosed the ground with split logs set up endways, making a fence about
ten feet high. They had one long building, built East and West, about
where the Rector^Òs block of buildings stands now on Main Street. A
building to house prisoners stood in the middle of the stockade. At this
time there was a hotel on the corner of this block where the McMullan
Hardware Store now stands, called El Rancho. It fronted on Main Street.
Just across the street the streets East of there Henderson & Smith^Òs
hardware store now stands was another Hotel, the Hoskins Hotel. Across on
the North side of Main Street, about where the Knights of Pythias
building stands, or maybe just a little farther West was the Moro Castle.
This was a three story frame building. The lower story seems to have been
used for mercantile purposes, and the second and third floors for
offices, gambling halls, or whatever occasion required. A little later,
Cumby, Hart, & James had a big livery stable East of the Hoskins House
with a saloon next to it, and a dry goods house where the Sulphur Springs
State Bank now stands. Saloons, ten pin alleys and gambling houses were
plentiful in those days. The first building on the corner, now the
northwest corner of the northwest corner of the square (sic,) was a
wooden building known as the Childress building. Where the City Hall now
stands was Wallers Dry Goods Co. John Davidson afterwards bought this and
erected a two-story frame building on the lot and used the upper floor
for a photograph gallery. The city bought it from him in 1900. Next to
Wallers on the west, Bufford, Harrison, and Thomas had a large general
mercantile house, and another store joined them on the west. On the North
side of the street, just across from the mouth of Texas street, there was
a mill from the earliest times. This mill was combined flour, grist and
planing mill for many years. It was acquired by B. F. Ashcroft & Co. in
the "seventies," and they added a gin to it. Mr. Ashcroft finally cut out
everything except the gin, and for many years it was one of the finest
gins in the whole country. It was finally torn down about 1907. When this
part of the highway began to be called a street, it took the name of Mill
Street from this mill, and for many years was known by that name. Away
out nearly to the pump station there was a "joint" on the North side of
the street that had a "first and last" sign in front of it - as the
traveler came into town it read "First Chance to get Groceries and
Whiskey" and as he went out it read, "Last Chance to get Groceries and
Whiskey."

When the city really began to build, it gradually spread around the
public square. Dr. Davis^Ò original idea was to make the square a good
deal larger than it is. His idea was to have Oak Avenue come into the
southeast corner of the square, like Gilmer street comes into the
southwest corner. But he decided that would make the square too large and
blocked up the block of lots that now make up the east side of the
square, thereby leaving Oak Avenue one block east. The reader might
wonder how he could make such changes to suit himself, but the county
records show that he did not make a deed to the square until 1870. When
he made the deed he deeded the square to Hopkins County, and not to the
city, and it so stands until this day.

When Federal soldiers established their headquarters at Sulphur Springs
they found it very inconvenient to run the business of the county with
the county seat at Tarrant, consequently in 1868, they moved the county
seat to Sulphur Springs. The people of Tarrant objected but there was
nothing they could do about it. The question was raised as to whether an
act done by a county officer, was supposed to be done at the county seat,
was legal if done outside of the county seat. To correct this and make
the acts legal, they had the E. J. Davis administration, in 1870, to pass
a special act permanently establishing the county seat at Sulphur
Springs, specifically declared that the removal of the county records by
the military authorities of the United State, and all official acts done
and preformed which were proper to be done and preformed at the county
seat were hereby declared to be legal and valid. (See Acts Called Session
Twelfth Legislature.) This was the death blow to Tarrant and most of the
town moved to Sulphur Springs. For several years after the removal of the
county seat to Sulphur Springs, the county had no court house except a
rented one. A part of the time they were over store building on the south
side of the square, and a part of the time they were in the lower story
of a long building that the Masons owned, which stood on the corner of
College Street and Oak Avenue. The long side of the building was on
College street. They built a wooden jail just east of where the present
jail stands, but out in the street. This building was finally overhauled
and made into the K(?)innamon House which burned a few years ago. In
1879, they decided to build a court house in the center of the square,
and advertised for bids. The minutes of the court do not state why they
abandoned this plan, but it was because the square was too small. They
then bought lots on the east side of the square about where the Big 4
Store formerly stood, and built a court house there, and a jail right
back of it. This court house was finished in 1881. About the first week
in February, 1894, this court house and the jail burned. They arranged
for temporary offices over what was then the Sulphur Springs State Bank
and rented the Waller Hall on the South Side of Connally Street for a
court room. They disposed of the old court house and jail lots and bought
the present location, and in 1895, erected the present court house and
jail. The jail was rebuilt in 1920.

When the Texas & Pacific Railroad built through Mineola in1872, the trade
shifted from Jefferson to Mineola, and Mr. T. J. Glascock (sic)
established a stage line between Sulphur Springs and Mineola. After the
Federal soldiers left he purchased the block of property they had
occupied - the old El Rancho had been torn down - and he built a large
livery stable on the southeast corner of the lot, fronting east, with the
front end about where the back of the McMullan Hardware Store is now.
This building stood there for many years and the stable was afterwards
operated by Bib Miller. Mr. Glascock also built, and his wife conducted a
hotel back where the federal barracks had formerly stood on the north
side of main Street. He had a livery stable here and one at Mineola, and
the arrival and departure of the stage was the most important event in
the happenings of the day.

The first railroad to build into Sulphur Springs was the East Line and
Red River, now the Louisiana Railway and Navigation Co., which arrived
here in 1879. It was built as a narrow gauge and so remained until 1892,
when it was widened into a standard gauge road. This road was operated by
the East Line and Red River Co. from the time it started building in
1876, until 1881 by the Missouri Pacific as lessee of the M. K. & T.
properties from 1881 until 1888; by receivers from 1888 until 1893; by
the Sherman, Shreveport & Southern Railway Company from 1893 until 1901;
and by the Missouri, Kansas & Texas form 1901 until sold to William
Edenborn in 1923.

The Cotton Belt was built through Hopkins county in 1887. The corporate
name of the property then was the St. Louis, Arkansas & Texas Railway Co.
The St. Louis, Southwestern Railway Company of Texas was organized in
1891, after a reorganization following a receivership of the old company.

Sulphur Springs, like all other towns of its age, was at first largely
dependent on private schools for the education of its children. There has
always been a school of some kind where the East Ward school stands now,
and College street got its name that way. Mrs. Craig had a little school
house in the southwest part of town; and the long building that was
mentioned as standing on Connally Street as part of the Federal soldiers
property was later used as a school house. When the public school system
was really organized, the city took over the East End and West End
schools, each carrying the same grades , were the only public schools in
the city. When Eastman College burned the city bought the property that
is now the Junior High School; in 1907, bought the South Ward property,
and erected ward buildings on the East, West and the south properties,
and a high school on the Eastman property. In 1922, the present high
school property was acquired, and the present high school building was
built.

In the early seventies the exact date I do not have, the Methodist Church
established what was known as the Sulphur Springs District Conference
High School were the Junior High School now stands. In 1883, this was
incorporated as Central College, and conducted as a church college until
1895, when it was sold to Prof. H. P. Eastman.. He conducted it as
Eastman College until 1900 (or 1906, paper faded) when the main building
burned. Mrs. Lucy Holderness and Mrs. Evans conducted a private school in
one of the building for a while until the property passed into the hands
of the city.

The exact date that the cemetery was established can not be determined.
There was a cemetery there before the deed to the property was made, and
no one knows for sure who was the first person buried there. My mother
told me that when they buried my grandfather Nelson there in 1860, that
there were no graves there except a Parson Askew and some Indian graves;
Judge J. A. Dial stated in his speech at the dedication of the chapel,
that according to the best traditional evidence, the first wife of Judge
F. M. Rogers was the first person buried there; while the minutes of
Tarrant Masonic Lodge or August 7, 1852, recite that it was resolved that
the lodge meet at "The Springs" Friday, August 13, 1852, and finish the
burial of Brother Steward Stockton, and that Brother John B. Craig preach
the funeral. Judge Rogers had not come to Sulphur Springs in 1852, and I
do not think Parson Askew had. Therefore, it is my opinion that it will
likely never be found out for sure who was the first person buried in out
city cemetery.

The post office was established in Sulphur Springs in 1854. There was
some confusion about the name and although the town had always been
Sulphur Springs the post office was named Bright Star. This continued to
be its name until 1871 when it was changed to the name of the town. The
only reminder of the old name is the name of Bright Star Lodge, I. O. O.
F. William G.. Wells was the first postmaster.

According to the best information I can get, the city was incorporated in
1870, and A. J. Bridges was the first mayor.

The first bank in the town was the banking firm of B. M. Childress &
Brother, which was opened right after the Civil War. This firm was
succeeded by J. W. Dabbs & Co., and was finally discontinued,, but do not
know the exact date. The next bank was the banking firm of Weaver &
Whitworth, which according to the best information I can get, was
established in 1876. This firm was organized into the First National Bank
in 1886. The City National Bank was organized in 1889, and the Sulphur
Springs State Bank in 1927.

The oldest organization in the town is the Methodist church, which was
organized in 1850. They must have organized with very few members and
brought them in from far and near, for there were a very few people
around this place in 1850. The Baptist church was organized in 1859; the
Presbyterian church in 1862; and the Christian church in 1870. I do not
have the dates of the organization of the other churches.

In this article I have tried to give an outline of the history of Hopkins
county, and if it will be the means of stimulating somebody in each part
of the county to gather the history of their community, I shall be well
repaid for the effort. I have tried faithfully to made it absolutely
correct, but if I have anything wrong and you know it, either in this
article or any of the others I have contributed to this issue of paper, I
will thank you to write and tell me. It would be a great work if the
schools of the county, with this article as a beginning, would take up
the work this winter and let^Òs write all of the early history of this
county before the folks that know it are all gone. J. C. McDonald - 1928