Incorporation of Commerce

After incorporation in 1885 Commerce had twelve businesses, a hotel, a livery stable, a steam mill and gin, a church and a school, according to the Handbook of Texas. The Cotton Belt reached it in 1887, and the Texas Midland added links to Ennis and Paris in the 1890s. By 1910 the town had 2,818 people, four banks, four gins, a cottonseed oil mill and a roundhouse, and East Texas Normal College enrolled 900. The roundhouse closed in the early 1950s, passenger trains stopped in 1956, and the last gin shut in 1978.

What the plaque says

Incorporation of Commerce The events leading up to the incorporation of the city of Commerce can be traced to the 1853 establishment of Josiah H. Jackson's general store about one and one-half miles northeast of this site. The village that developed around his store was known as Cow Hill, and it grew to be an active trading center. In 1870 a new bridge was constructed over the South Sulphur River, and traffic was diverted away from Cow Hill. Two years later, William Jernigin, a Cow Hill businessman, moved his mercantile store to a site closer to the Sulphur Springs-Bonham Highway. The crossroads near Jernigin's store became a major commercial center, and during the 1870s, the name Commerce was given to the village that grew up here. On Sept. 12, 1885, an election for incorporation was held, and the village residents voted in favor of the proposal. Incorporation of the city of Commerce was granted on Sept. 25th by Hunt County Judge J. S. Sherrill. Sherrill appointed W. W. Rutland as mayor, and he served until Capt. W. E. Mangum was chosen for that position in the first city election. The mayor was assisted in the city government by four aldermen. Following its incorporation, the city continued its activities as a strong Hunt County commercial center. (1985)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Audie Murphy / American Cotton Museum — 14 mi
  A Greenville museum of Hunt County's military heroes, including Audie Murphy, and of cotton, which keeps the engine of what it says was the world's largest inland cotton compress.
• Cooper Lake State Park — 15 mi
  Two units on Jim Chapman Lake, a Corps reservoir proposed in the late 1930s, stalled by a lawsuit until 1984 and dedicated in 1991, with a 10.5-mile equestrian trail and wildlife land around it.
• Sam Rayburn House State Historic Site — 29 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

• Birthplace of Maj. Gen. Claire L. Chennault — 0.2 mi
• East Texas State University — 0.7 mi
• Scatter Branch Church — 4.2 mi
• Mt. Zion Churches and Cemetery — 5.1 mi