On Route of Early Texas Streetcars

The steam car was called the Dummy, and in Helen Evans Burow's account it was a neighborhood venture. Four Russell Heights families built the power plant near the old fairgrounds, and Bob Bohannon ran it and drove the car. It carried passengers to the fair, to Texas-Oklahoma League ball games, to the races and to the natatorium at Sinclair Lake. It also delivered groceries: a housewife sent a list, the motorman rang his bell outside the store on the way back, and the order was handed up. Monthly tickets cost $1.25 for schoolchildren and $2.50 for businessmen.

What the plaque says

On Route of Early Texas Streetcars In Bonham--as in most Texas towns that became busy trading, ranching, or agricultural centers in the late 1800s--streetcars or trolleys were used in local transit. Bonham's steam-powered streetcar line, built about 1890, extended 2.5 miles from Russell Heights to the Texas & Pacific Railroad Station. Cars ran every 30 minutes. Fare was 5 cents; or 10 cents round-trip. The route avoided the business district, as streetcars frightened horses and disrupted trading. Other towns of sprawling growth had mule-drawn streetcars as early as 1875. These early cars were susceptible to track-jumping, collision, and other accidents, but were nevertheless welcomed for their services. Convenient streetcar rides attracted not only townspeople, but saddle-sore cowboys as well. By 1890, when Bonham acquired the steam-car line, mule-drawn cars were being replaced all over Texas. Early Travel, Communication and Transportation Series, Erected by the Moody Foundation 1967.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Sam Rayburn House State Historic Site — 2.2 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.
• Eisenhower Birthplace State Historic Site — 23 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.
• Eisenhower State Park — 29 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.

More markers nearby

• Risser Hospital — steps away
• First Baptist Church — steps away
• First Christian Church of Bonham — steps away
• First United Methodist Church of Bonham — steps away