Grayson County TXGenWeb

Canaan was a small railroad town, north of Whitewright 3 miles.

This is the story of its demise, it was not rebuilt.

Local History
Newspaper Clippings- undated article

NIGHT OF TERROR RECALLED WHEN TINY TOWN DIED
By Pete Wittenberg
Staff Writer

Site of Old Canaan - If you take Farm Road 898 north from Whitewright today, you'll presently reach a wit gravel road which cuts off and winds northwest between open fields of grass and furrowed earth. Eventually it connects with Highway 69, which takes you back into Whitewright or north into Bells.
A few farm buildings are strung out along the way, but of old Canaan Community there is no trace. Two small, recently built farms near the railroad crossing east of Highway 69 are all that stand in the fields from which Canaan disappeared one night 44 years ago.
Yellowed newspaper clippings and the memories of old-timers living in the area recall the circumstances of the community's violent death shortly after midnight Wednesday, April 9, 1919, just five months after the great World War I holocaust ended.

WRONG-WAY TORNADO

The tornado which moved toward the Canaan railroad crossing followed what an old Texas Almanac called a "southeast-northwest weather diving line", according to Doss. Although almost all tornadoes come from the southwest, all those in Whitewright-native Doss' memory originated from the southeast.
The wind ripped down telephone poles and lines, drove heavy timbers into the earth and overtaking the Katy, overturned the cars and injured the crew members.
When it reached the box car homes of a Mexican section crew, it plucked them from the west side of the track and dropped them upside down on the east side. In such a manner the winds sucked in their prey from positions not directly touched by the funnel.

MOVED TO WHITEWRIGHT

Bill White was soon to move his gin to Whitewright. All that was left standing in Canaan was part of the office. When the storm passed, the office safe was laying in a field. (see photo below) His son Bill now owns the company.
Jim Ayres set up a new general store in Whitewright, now owned by his nephew, Charlie, who turned the investment into a dry goods store.
The tornado which first touched ground six miles south of Trenton spent its force somewhere between the ruins of Canaan and the fortunate town of Bells, which stood in the path of possible catastrophe. The storms which blanketed Texas and Oklahoma during the tornado were responsible for more than 100 deaths and the loss of millions of dollars.
Canaan?s death toll has been reported to be one or two by different sources. Other communities counting up fatalities in the storm's wake were Delba, four; Whitewright, two; Ector, seven; Mulberry, seven, and Blue Ridge, seven. Eleven died in Durant, Oklahoma. West Texas had a snow blizzard that day in April. Trenton suffered heavy losses but no deaths. ( Note from Susan- I have a list of 91 dead from this storm far)

AMERICAN LEGION HALL
"Canaan was probably older than Whitewright," Doss said. "Whitewright wasn't incorporated until 1878." "The community had a Presbyterian church, the second oldest church in the area, ever since I can remember, and I was born in 1877," Hamilton commented.

Nobody can put the pieces of Canaan back together again, although the school was rebuilt in Whitewright and is now the American Legion Hall. Trenton had better luck. O. E. Cashion came to the battered city from Tennessee shortly after the storm intending to stay briefly. Instead he rebuilt Trenton and spent the rest of his life there, dying a few weeks ago at the age of 75.
If you want to see all that remains of the original Canaan now, you must walk a short distance into a field on the west side of the railroad crossing, pass through a small cluster of sunflowers and keep your eyes to the ground. The last relic is a flooded storm cellar built for the use of the Canaan school.