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History in
a Pecan Shell
Named 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 |
Tom Bean City
Hall
Photo courtesy Mike
Price, 2007 |
Historical Marker
City of Tom
Bean
Tom
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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