Grayson County

The county's two names are a compromise. The Handbook of Texas says the 1846 act that created Grayson County also named its seat Sherman, apparently to settle a dispute between supporters of Sidney Sherman, an anti-Houston Whig, and of Peter W. Grayson, a pro-Houston Democrat; few Texas towns were named by act of the legislature. The 1850 census counted 186 enslaved people, held mostly by farmers and stockmen along the Red River. In 1861 the county voted 901 to 463 to stay in the Union, though Whitesboro hosted an early secessionist rally.

What the plaque says

Grayson County In the mainstream of Texas history for more than a century, this area was, in 1837, the site of Colonel Holland Coffee's Trading Post, a landmark structure at the Preston Bend crossing of the Red River. It was a focal point, beginning in 1842, for settlers of the important Peters' colony. In 1846 the county was created from part of Fannin County by the 1st State Legislature. It was named for Peter W. Grayson, who immigrated to Texas in 1830, served in the Texas revolution, and was attorney general in the Republic. Also in 1846 the county was organized and Sherman was made county seat. The original townsite was 5-1/4 mi. W of here. It was moved to its present location, 1848. Honoree of the town name was Colonel Sidney Sherman, a hero of the Battle of San Jacinto. The place is distinguished for having had at least five courthouses and for its superior schools of the 19th century. It was once known as the "Athens of Texas." In 1858 the famous Butterfield Trail crossed the county and in the same period and later, a number of cattle trails and early railroads traversed the area. Today Lake Texoma, created 1939-1944, is a county approved tourist attraction. The Sherman-Denison region was named a Standard Metropolitan Statistical Area, 1967. Incise on back: Erected by Grayson County Historical Survey Committee.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Eisenhower Birthplace State Historic Site — 8.9 mi
  The small frame house beside the Katy tracks in Denison where Dwight Eisenhower was born in 1890, bought by townspeople in 1946 and given to Texas in 1958.
• Hagerman National Wildlife Refuge — 11 mi
  A 1946 refuge on the Big Mineral Arm of Lake Texoma, laid over land bought for Denison Dam and the site of the vanished railroad town of Hagerman, now a winter stop for geese.
• Eisenhower State Park — 12 mi
  A bluff-top park on Lake Texoma opened in 1958 on land leased from the Corps of Engineers, in the Red River country of Fort Johnson, Colbert's Ferry and the Butterfield stages.
• Sam Rayburn House State Historic Site — 23 mi
  The two-story farmhouse west of Bonham that the longtime Speaker of the House built in 1916 and kept as his home, left as he lived in it and open as a museum since 1975.

More markers nearby

• Home County of Allison Mayfield, Conservationist — steps away
• Ninth Texas Cavalry — steps away
• President T. Roosevelt's Visit to Grayson County — steps away
• Peter W. Grayson — steps away