Locke the Tinner building | Grayson County, TXGenWeb

FIRE: Locke the Tinner building destroyed
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Sherman fire officials are suspicious of an early morning blaze that destroyed the Shirt Shack, 225 East Houston, Tuesday.
The loss involved more than the business. The blaze destroyed a landmark, the site of a church built in 1875, at the corner
of Houston and Montgomery.
Phillip Hightower, fire marshal, reported that the fire began outside the building, just before 5 a.m. "It appears that someone
stacked some newspapers against the side of the building and set them on fire," Hightower said. "We do have a suspect in mind,
but won't release any further information until the suspect is apprehended.
The building, which housed "Locke the Tinner" in the 1920s, and an adjacent structure used by Dallas Morning News paper carriers
were both gutted by the blaze. Hightower estimated damage to the two structures alone would be around $75,000.
Chuck Lockhart, owner of the Shirt Shack, had been in process of moving to a new location when the fire occurred, according
to Sherman Fire Chief Jack Gott. However, much of Lockhart's equipment remained inside the building and was a total loss. Hightower added that Lockhart had no insurance.
Three engines, a ladder truck, a command vehicle and 12 to 15 firefighters were called to the scene at approximately 4:48 a.m. Tuesday. According to Hightower, other adjacent buildings were saved because of the firefighters' hard and fast work in keeping
the fire contained.
The origin of the building embraces much of Sherman's early religious history, including that of both the Church of Christ and
Central Christian Church.
In a 1967 article in the Sherman Democrat, Travis Street Church of Christ (now Western Heights) minister Olden Cook writes, "The origins of the Church of Christ in Sherman goes back 119 years to the work of B.F. Hall, a noted preacher and traveling dentist."
A 1988 Sherman Democrat article details the reason Central Christian Church had been awarded a historical marker by the state. Early meeting places included a brush arbor and a union meeting hall at a nearby Masonic hall."
Although, few records exist about the specific activities of the community congregation during the Civil War, for the first nine years after the war the group was led by "Uncle" Charley Carlton, who became one of the leading advocates of the newly formed Missionary Society.
The early church group built its own building in either 1873, 1874 or 1875, depending on which of the various historical accounts is correct. At that time, 1874 according to Cook's account, the church had about 45 members. The following year "John S. Sweeny debated Jacob Ditzler, the noted Methodist, and the church received its greatest boost. In a meeting following the debate, Sweeny baptized 124."
Cook's account said a succession of preachers followed from 1874 to 1895. One of them, T.W. Caskey, was an eminent debater and during his stay in Sherman several famous debates were held with practically every religious group.
In 1882, a group that favored the Missionary Society withdrew and formed Central Christian Church. The new group purchased a site at the corner of Travis and Cherry streets and built a new church there in 1905. In 1964, Central Christian Church added a new fellowship hall and remodeled its sanctuary.
The congregation at the corner of Montgomery and Lamar further split in 1895 over whether to keep an organ in the church. The pro-organ group became the First Christian Church and merged the next year with the Central Christian Church.
In 1907, the original building was moved from the Houston and Montgomery location and a new building erected there. Cook wrote in 1967. After 1911, the Church of Christ congregation acquired a site at Walnut and Cherry Streets on which it built a three-story building. When that building was complete in 1920, the old church building at Houston and Montgomery.............