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DECATUR,
TEXAS
"Eighter from Decatur, County Seat of Wise" - gambling epithet
Wise
County Seat, Central
Texas North
Highways 287 and 380
27 miles SE of Bowie
27 miles W of Denton
40 miles
NW of Fort Worth
Population:
5,201 (2000) 4,245 (1990) |
History
in a Pecan Shell
Wise County was established in 1856 and named after Virginian Henry A. Wise
who supported Texas annexation.
The town was originally called Taylorsville
after The Mexican War Hero Gen. Zachary Taylor, but was changed in 1858 to honor
Stephen Decatur, Revolutionary War naval hero. The town was platted by early settler
Absalom Bishop who became a member of the Texas Legislature.
A post office
was opened in 1857 and the first school was opened that same year. Decatur was
a stop on the Butterfield Overland Mail.
During the Civil War, 5 members
of the Unionist Peace party were tried and executed in Decatur in 1862.
The last Indian raids occurred around 1874 and by 1882 the Fort Worth and Denver
Railway laid tracks to town. The population tripled from 579 in 1880 to 1,746
in 1890.
Decatur's population high-water mark was in 1928 when 3,200
lived there, but commuters from Fort
Worth have recently boosted the growth to where it now stands at over 5,000.
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Decatur Masonic Building
and Water Tower
On the northwest corner of the square. This is one of
two water towers that're set behind the Masonic Building. - SF
Photo courtesy Sam
Fenstermacher, 2004 |
Growing up in Decatur in the 1930s Excerpts
from "I Was a
Teen in the 1930s and Some More Stuff" by Harold Bell Miss
Bell
Nobody
in the world, dead or alive, knew how long Miss Bell taught the fourth grade in
and around Decatur, Texas...
The
Sheriff
"You never know when somebody says something, or does something, that
it may have a big effect on you the rest of your life."The
Tight-Wire Walker
"She's very daring. They put her wire up to the very tiptop of the
tent thirty-five feet above the ground, and she does exciting maneuvers without
using a net." My
Date with Mary
Mary was the cause of the most exciting week of my young life. |
Nearby
Destinations
Lake Bridgeport - off US Highway 380 west of Decatur.
On the West Fork Trinity River in Jack and Wise counties.
Decatur
Tourist Information Decatur
Chamber of Commerce - (940) 627-3107
P.O. Box 474, 1200-C S. FM 51, Decatur,
Texas 76234
http://www.decaturtx.com/
City
of Decatur - http://www.decaturtx.org/ Decatur
Hotels |
Recommended
Books on Decatur, Texas Two
excellent books of stories of growing up in Wise County during the first half
of the 20th century are:
I
Was A Teen in the 1930s by Harold Bell, 2002 - book review
Everything
I Ever Needed to Know I Learned by Listening to Old Men On My Paper Route in Decatur,
Texas
or
What They Didn't Tell Me Was Supplemented By Selling Magazine
Subscriptions Around the Southern United States During the Great Depression.
Eighter
from Decatur: Growing Up in North Texas
by Jim Tom Barton, Texas A&M University
Press, 1980 | |
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