Grayson County TXGenWeb

Railroad Brought Bank, Brick
Business Buildings To Ambrose

AMBROSE - Ambrose was a community without a name until the first survey crew from the Denison, Bonham and New Orleans Railroad came along and set up town plots. They gave the old gal a name in 1901 of Ambrose. It was named for Ambrose Bible, which seemed somewhat, more approriate than the last name. Bible had donated the land.

That, at least, was more successful was more successful than the railroad, which never lived up to its name as the railroad ran out of money by the time the line was run to Bonham.

But for Ambrose, it was the life line of a struggling community. It provided a better way to market cotton and corn. Watermelons and other farm products were shipped out. Sand and gravel from some of the farmed sand pits started moving over the politicians.

Gin attracted the young folks in Ambrose's early days, but it was the cotton gin loading platform that was the gathering place in the evening, the social mecca for the town.

Ambrose lies in Grayson County near Fannin, and many early day land owners paid taxes in both counties.

In its early days Ambrose had several stores, a gin and a bank with O. T. Sanford, W. C. Brown, Bill Ratliff and Dennis Bible as directors. There was a drug store and barber shop, and the post office was located in one of the two grocery stores.

One of the most looked for social events in Ambrose history was its annual July Fourth picnic, which usually ran for three or four days many years before Congress got around to creating the three-day weekends. The picnic attracted the best cooks, most beautiful girls, certainly the most handsome and attentive swains, and of course all of the wordly. . . .