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History
in a Pecan ShellNamed
after the colorful
and mysterious surveyor from Bonham,
the town developed around 1888 when the railroad arrived and the post office opened.
Mr.
Bean donated 50 acres for a townsite - including the railroad
right-of-way. The railroad
drew off of the population of nearby White Mound and soon Tom Bean (the
town) was thriving. The population reached 299 in 1900 and by the mid-20s there
were 367 Beanites, Beansonians or Beanilains. After the 1950s the population grew
slowly. It was 570 by the mid-1970s and it seems to have peaked in the late 80s
with 926 residents.
See
City
of Tom Bean Historical Marker
Tom
Bean - The Man |
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City of Tom BeanTom
Bean, a wealthy Bonham landowner
and surveyor, donated fifty acres of land in southeast Grayson County to be used
for a branch railroad line from Sherman to Commerce.
Bean died
in 1887; in that year the city of Tom Bean was established. Nearby Whitemound,
which was bypassed by the railroad,
lost its post office to Tom
Bean's city in 1888; many Whitemound settlers moved to the new town.
Mr. Bean's estate began to sell town lots surrounding the railroad in the 1890s.
The city school was moved in 1891 from a one-room structure to a two-story building
with an auditorium. Several Christian denominations, including the Church of Christ,
Baptist, Presbyterian, and Methodist, established churches in town. The city charter
was signed in 1897 and the first mayor was Ice B. Reeves.
In the early
days of the 20th century, the city boomed. Within a few years, it boasted a grain
company, a furniture company, a drugstore, a newspaper called the "Tom Bean Bulletin,"
a saloon, a dance hall, a movie theater, and the Tom Bean Social Club. As time
progressed, the sharp increase in automobile travel and transport, and the decline
of cotton as the principal crop of the area,
led businesses to the larger cities of Denison
and Sherman. Though never again the railroad boomtown
of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the community enjoyed a growth spurt
in the 1950s, celebrating its centennial in 1987, the city of Tom Bean continues
to thrive.
(1998) |
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