Grayson County TXGenWeb

Dallas Morning News
4 May 1887

SHERMAN AND ITS FUTURE. A CITY OF INTELLIGENCE AND WEALTH
It's Population, Business Men, Improvements, Resources, Schools and Other Evidences of Welfare - Glance at Grayson County.

A city of wealth, whose business men - three-fourths of them with money above their needs -- commenced
with little or nothing and grew with its growth; a city of cultivated taste and enlightenment; a city that has only known two business failures in upward of a year; in fine, a city of an even, symmetrical development - such as well as the most useful goods; its trade covered the garden of Texas and reaches into the territories of the Mexican and the Indian; its suburbs contain miles of beautiful residences and its educational facilities are incomparably the finest in the State if not in the South. It is, withal, the count seat of the richest county in Texas, a county in which every road of land can sustain its man and which contains forty-eight post office towns. The population of Sherman, by no inflated or convulsive efforts, has more than doubled within the last eight years,
as the following figures go to show: 1880, 6993; 1881, 7060; 1882, 7500; 1883, 8000; 1884, 7800; 1885, 9504; 1886, 10,500; 1887, 12,200. The enumerations of 1880 and 1885 have been verified by oath, and the census of the
other years, estimated from the assessor's rolls, while not branded with official certainty, are approximately correct. There are 1870 residences within the city limits and 400 adjacent to those lines, while the rolls in the collector's office show that 1750 persons have paid poll tax, facts which go to prove that the population claimed is not out of the way. The city has an area of four square miles, through the length of which runs a well equipped street railway. Next month will be commenced the construction of a belt line of street railway to cover a distance of about four miles, in connection with which it is proposed to construct a fine tramway between the city and Denison, which will prove of great accommodation to trade and travel. A system of water-works, the capacity of which can, when necessary, be increased at little cost, is nearing completion. Nine miles of mains and laterals have been laid, and the water tower, 135 feet high with a gravity to send a stream as huge as a church steeple, will be finished this week.
The system adopted is that of driven wells, of which fifty have been bored. A full description of this system as operation in the City of Brooklyn was published in a recent number of The News. A daily supply of 250,000 gallons is guaranteed but a test, made under the drawback of the recent unprecedented drought, gives promise of double that quantity. One of these wells of magnificent diameter afforded an abundance of water for power and all other purposes to the Sherman Oil and Cotton Company, working day and night for seven successive months. Planted under topographical conditions favorable to a large underground flow of water, this system, in the opinion of hydraulic engineers, offers the surest source of supply in tropical or semi-tropical latitudes. In such latitudes the annual precipitation is generally heavy; but the sun dries the face of the land and the bulk of the rainfall sinks through the creviced soil until it reaches an impervious stratum. This stratum at Sherman was reached at a depth of twenty-five feet. The system, for which Mayor Connor, of Dallas, is the contractor, will
cost $90,000; but as the water is clear, pure and abundant, the rent from consumers, at figures encouraging to manufactures and private consumers. will easily meet the interest and sinking fund. An examination of the locale of the driven wells reveals the drag ropes in dictations similar to those which characterize the many surfaces depressions that are found within easy range of Dallas. But the people of Sherman were favored by
the absence of a filthy stream of the proportions of the Trinity River, which might have won over to its side that portion of the unscientific who, like the camel on the desert, first recognize water by its smell.
The streets of Sherman are lighted by electricity, the lamps distributed everywhere within the city limits at o greater distance apart than three blocks. Domestic illumination is furnished from the gas-works.
Among other improvements the city boasts of a beautiful opera house, which cod $10,000 and can seat 1200 persons comfortably; several handsome lodges belonging to benevolent orders, and handsome air grounds, containing a grand stand, floral hall, art gallery, 200 stables and a mule track in excellent condition. Scattered through the ground in effective order are clumps of trees - great monarchs of the forest - which diffuse a grateful shade that is freely patronized by picnickers. It also has two fine hotels, each three stories high and admirably conducted.

    BUSINESS STATUS AND BUSINESS
In Sherman the rich man's wealth is the fruit of industry and frugality ripened by natural growth, and leaving no ground for prejudice or irritation. There is no city of its size perhaps in the South whose growth has been freed from the chills and fever of commercial disorder, and none of its size whose business men are more above their wants. The foundations of its business were laid in prudence, and with that cautionary observance has its business grown under the healthy influence of its rich surroundings, gathering vital energy for Grayson, Fannin, Hunt, Collin, Denton, Rockwall and Cook Counties which comprise an agricultural Eden. As already remarked, notwithstanding the almost unprecedented shortage in last year's crops, there have been only two business failures in Sherman for upward of a year than which no stronger evidence of the solidity of its business men need be asked, for when business men cannot be shaken by the disturbing causes of prices r stranded by the swollen waves of speculation with which the United States is periodically visited, they must be solid as a fortress.
The retail trade of Sherman is as voluminous as the demand of a most prosperous section, which demand embraces everything necessary to the comfort and enjoyment of life. Accordingly one finds in the stores of
this city the most expensive and attractive articles of foreign and domestic manufacture which are bought as well by country people as by city residents, going to the prosperous and cultivated status of the farmers. In
this connection, by way of a parenthesis, it is not out of place to state that as many as 400 sons and daughters
of farmers are undergoing academic instruction in Sherman.
The wholesale trade of this city is represented by twenty-two houses, vie: Three groceries, one clothing, two barb wire, two dry goods, two furniture, to grain-houses, one drugs, two jewelry, five agricultural implement houses and two liquor establishments. One wholesale jewelry store is said to be the largest in the State. It carries a stock of $65,000, and its business extends into Kansas. The volume of trade done by these houses
last year, as shown by Dun's Commercial Agency, which here has a costly fitting office in the charge of Mr. Robert B. Easley, a wide awake business man, is as follows: Groceries $1,250,000; hardware $850,000; drugs $130,000; dry goods $1,000,000; liquors $500,000; jewelry goods $60,000; furniture $200,000; grain $1,000,000, agricultural implements $400,000.
A very important interest of Sherman is its grain trade. outside of the mills a single establishment, the strongest of its kind in Texas made the following shipments during the past year, as shown by the books in its office, to which The News correspondent was courteously given access: Corn 200,000 bushels, oats 150,000 bushels,
hay 2000 tons, and sixty-two car loads of mixed bran, hay and oats. Sherman has three large lumber yards, two of them protected by mammoth sheds and all doing an aggregate annual business estimated in round numbers at $300,000.
The records at the railroad office show the total cotton shipments of last year to have been 14, 049 bales, a gain of 6612 over the shipments of the preceding year. This is a long step toward the recovery of its position as a cotton market, and one that finds solid support from the modus operandi of the cotton seed oil mill to which reference will be made further on. As it is Sherman controls the cotton market of Grayson and surrounding counties, in which the purchase last year aggregated 150,000 bales. The least that can be said of the business
of Sherman is that it is large, solid and growing rapidly. Many new houses are spoken of, and Messrs. Leon &
H. Blum, of Galveston, one of the largest firms in the South, will have a branch there in full operation by the
20th of this month.
At the post office, which is well conducted by Mrs. McPherson, THE NEWS correspondent was put in possession of the following postal statistics: Postal receipts for year ending March 31, 1887, $11,375.87, average number of letters distributed daily 2400, amount of money orders issued in March $1,595.12, paid during same moth $6,681.21, surplus money from other post offices remitted in March to St. Louis $40,400. A free delivery service will be put in the early part of July under the existing special act of Congress.
Sherman has two banks with a paid up capital exclusive of surplus of $1,000,000, one of them having an authorized capital in that amount. The directors ad stockholders in both banks are among the leading men in every branch of industry in Grayson, its neighboring counties and the Indian Territory. While referring to the banks reference is due to the late Judge Binkley, to whose illustrious career Sherman is a monument. As a Banker he was unexcelled for the dignity and strength of his management; as a useful citizen, his purse and influence were found in every work of public improvement, and as a private citizen his purity of character
merits imperishable remembrance. The soul of honor, he was in many respects the soul of Sherman, whose example of itself was a large training school for the promotion of business activity and sound integrity, an individual instance of which is found in the laborifance by his bank of the tenet of his training in the person of
Mr. Tom Randolph. Raised from his boyhood under the tutelage of Judge Binkley, Mr. Randolph, at the age of
19, was elected cashier of the bank for which position, in order to legalize his official acts, it was necessary that his minority should be removed by the courts. On the death of Judge Binkley, one year ago, he was formally installed president of one of the largest banking houses in the South, with a pledge of the support and influence of the directors, he being then in all probability the youngest bank president in the word.
Under the operation of the citizen's executive committee there has been

    A SUDDEN AWAKENING,
with a determination on the past of Sherman to bring, if necessary, its full strength to the foreground in the trail of growth, if not the contest for supremacy. It is prepared to bring into action as far as possible all the natural agencies and natural aids of trade. The activity of this spirit is proven by an expenditure on public works within a year of nearly $750,000, including the donation in land and money to the St. Louis, Arkansas and Texas Railroad now approaching completion of $143,000, the largest subsidy ever paid to a railroad by any city in Texas. This subsidy, however, is as bread cast upon the waters, for it secures to the city the shops and round-house of the company, guarantees it the delivery of Illinois coal at from $3 to $3.50 a ton, opens up an immense reach of country to trade, among other desiderata connecting Sherman with 130 lumber mills. To provide homes for the employees of this railroad, its president, Mr. Fordyce, in concert with directors of the road, and Capt. Lyon, of Sherman, has purchased sixty acres of land, which is to be at once laid off into blocks and lots. Other railroad projects are like the see which furnishes the staff of life, germinating the dark. Negotiations are known to be on foot to secure the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe with all the advantages that such an acquisition implies, and the possession of the Frisco road is regarded as a certainty, giving connection, south-westerly with Eagle Pass, through Tarrant, Somersville, Hamilton, San Saba, Mason, Kerr, Bandera,
Uvaide and Maverick Counties. The Memphis and Little Rock Road is included in the list of the earnestly and hopefully expected channels of commerce. It will make further connection with El Paso, opening up to Sherman trade a tier of wealthy western counties. These roads, with the Houston and Texas Central and Texas Pacific now running through, will develop a railroad center of considerable magnitude. Then will Sherman sail forth
like a ship with ribs of oak and sinews of iron and guided by an unerring magnet. Its start in life has been health; its development brought about under an influence commanding on the side of good order and sound morals, with the strong arm of authority ever directed to that ad which means the truest welfare of the community. In this connection reference to

    THE CHURCHES
of this city is in order. Of such edifices there are seventeen, many of them stately buildings. As to their denominations and the color of their congregations, they are classes as follows: First Methodist Episcopal Church South, Second Methodist Episcopal Church South, First Presbyterian, Second Presbyterian (mission), Cumberland Presbyterian, St. Mary's )Catholic), St. Stephen's (Episcopal), First Baptist, First Christian, Fairview Union Meeting House, St. Paul's (Congregationalist), Friendship (Methodist), three colored Methodist and one colored Baptist. In addition to the churches, the ministers and members of all the Protestant Churches of white congregations have a pastors' and teachers' institute which meets at the churches by rotation; and the white ladies of all creeds are banded together under the title of the Ladies' Benevolent Association, for the performance of corporal works of mercy, such as visiting and attending to the wants of the sick and destitute.
In this way the deserving needy are discovered and the low, still voice of distress is rarely heard in the city.
The proportion of church attendants to the entire population is estimated at 75 per cent.

    THE MANUFACTURING INTERESTS
of Sherman are, in proportion to its population, equal to those of any city in the Southwest. It has three flouring mills with an aggregate daily capacity of 550 barrels, the annual output last year being 165,000 barrels of flour and 9,600,000 pounds of bran and shorts. These mills ordinarily derive their entire supply of grain from the wheat fields of Grayson County, and find a ready demand for the entire product, which is estimated at about $700,000. There is besides a farmer's mill with a daily capacity of fifty barrels, and three corn mills turning out
in the aggregate about 126 barrels per day.
The Sherman Oil and Cotton Company, perhaps the greatest business o its kind in the South, is justly the pride of the city. It represents an investment of $100,000 and is under the management of J. C. Tassey, who is president of the company and is keen as a briar. This mill, like THE NEWS press, is a wonderful instance of how the materials and forces of nature can be made efficient by invention as a substitute for endless labor. The scope of the enterprise as stated by Mr. Tassey is large and the idea is original, and opens up an entirely new field. Such high authority as Edward Atkinson, of Boston, has estimated that the loss to the cotton crop of the United States through (page torn) ...erfect ginning, middle profits between the cotton grower and the spinner, sampling and picking of the bales, etc., is fully 5 per cent of the gross value of the staple. This amount on 6,000,000 bales is equal to a loss of 300,000 bales of cotton, or $15,000,000 on the annual crop of cotton of the United States. The object this company has in view is the buying of the cotton in the seed from the grower,
and by reducing the cost of handling and by the use of the most improved machinery, handled by experts, to
do the best work possible in converting it into a marketable condition with the best results; and then, by selling direct to the consumers, save all intermediate charges.
Machinery takes the cotton in the seed and from that crude state delivers bales, refined oil and oil cake. The seed cotton is drawn from cars or wagons through a suction elevator, which deposits it in the fourth story,
where a fan run by 85-horse power, separates or cleans it and then transfers it to the gins in the third story. There are 10 gins, all worked by a Corliss engine of 100-horse power (which it is proposed to increase to 300-horse power) and capable of ginning 300 bales a day. There are besides 8 supplemented gins designed for use in the event of accidents from fire or other causes, of which, however, there is little to be feared, as the cautionary observances in the establishment are of a kind with those of a powder magazine. It is claimed that the ginning machinery in this room is the largest in the world. The staple is transferred from the gins to two double box presses on the second floor, from which the bales are turned over to platform scales, where they
are weighed, sampled and marked before encountering the weather. The seed is conveyed automatically from the gins to the oil mill by a system of tubing passing on route through a cleaner, the invention of Capt. Tassey, which, by some mechanical affinity for cotton seed seemingly only known to the inventor, removes all foreign substances. Entering the oil mill it passes through a bulling machine, from which it is transferred to the heaters where it is cooked. The cakes being subjected to sufficient pressure to prevent their breaking are transferred to the process, on which a pressure of 4000 pounds to the square inch is applied. There are ninety-six boxes, or twelve to each press, with a capacity of 100 tons of seed daily. The free oil flown into a reservoir, from which it is pumped into the refinery, from which the rinsed oil, looking like and passing for a superior brand of olive oil,
is run through pipes into the barreling room, where it is barreled and branded, being then ready for shipment to New York, Chicago, and New Orleans. The cake finds its best market in Great Britain; but the company last winter used a portion of it in the fattening of 1500 beeves, which proved to be the finest fat cattle ever shipped from Texas. The daily output of the mills is estimated at $12,000 in cotton and $2000 in oil and cake, and employment is given to from sixty to one hundred laborers, representing the support of from 200 to 600 persons. It is proposed next season to run a batting factory in connection with the other works, so that everything may
be turned to profit and nothing wasted. The mill is illuminated by electricity, generated from the surplus of the power that is used to run the machinery.
Next in importance are two foundries and machine shops, with an investment of $130,000, giving employment
to about sixty-five persons and affording a valuable, large and varied output, including iron fronts for houses, windmills, well borers, and a hundred other aids to commercial and agricultural industry. These shops are fitted up with modern machinery are the largest in the Southwest, have a business beyond their ability to supply and would be a credit to any manufacturing center in the country.
The Sherman Cotton Compress Company has one of the largest plants of its kind in the State, the capacity being 800 bales a day and the output last season 40,000 bales, much of which was brought in by the railroads. The work done by this compress is excellent, as evidence of which it is only necessary to state that the Maritime Association invariably accepts its pressing.
The city also possesses two marble works, one of which is run by steam, the only marble works in the State thus operated; two steam scroll works, three brickyards, a planning mill each in connection with the iron works, two cigar factories, a chair and furniture factory, two soap factories, ice works, gas works, a large electric light plant, a grain elevator, a soda water and cider factory, a bed spring factory, a collar factory, three mattress factories, three broom factories, two candy factories and two well equipped carriage shops. With this good showing, it may be truly stated that the manufacturing interests of Sherman are yet in their infancy, the city
only recently having aroused from the laissez-faro condition that is commonly associated with great natural advantages. On the question of factories, however, Sherman is now wide awake, stripped to the waist and determined to have them. It possesses the four circumstances favorable to their introduction and success, i.e. large local capital, territorial advantages, the density of the surrounding population and a near market. On the first hand it is a fact beyond contradiction that there is more capitalized wealth in Sherman in proportion to its population than in any other city of the Southwest, and this cuts a very important figure, for a poor people
cannot afford extensive manufactures, as in that industry large and expensive establishments are needed to produce at least cost and to put such establishments in operation. It is therefore obvious that manufactories worthy of being so called cannot be successfully established where there is a deficiency of capital. In the
matter of natural advantages it is only necessary to state that Sherman is the center of the most densely populated and richest agricultural section in Texas, in which no competition to the productive industry of the manufacturer exists, and his sufficiently explains the other advantages referred to. It has other aids to this great end in the possession of an abundance of water, the assurance from the St. Louis, Aransas and Texas Railway Company of the delivery of this summer of coal at $3.50 a ton, and probably at $3 a ton, and the possession of real estate, which unsparked by wild adventure, enables it to off as a bonus suitable locations for factories, and in its wisdom - if it is not seized with that form of insanity which is other than conducive to the interests of the city - to secure to operatives cheap living by offering them cheap homes. To show its earnestness in reaching out for manufactured wealth Sherman has within a few weeks organized a committee on public interest, composed of seventy of its wealthiest and most enterprising citizens, who understand the stimulating effect of manufactures upon other branches of industry, especially upon agriculture.

    EDUCATIONAL PROVISIONS
While in many cities old residents point with pride to their jails and courthouses as the architectural evidence
of progress, if not of reform, the citizens of Sherman rest their hope for progress and reform on their institutions of learning, and the latter are incomparably the most commanding structures in the architectural development
of the city. in this comparison, two ideas of development are brought into contrast, which in taking stock of true progress,, should not be overlooked - the idea of a high pressure aggression and defense, and the idea of a self governed people, whose control will not require the government of others. To the latter are correlative the benefits that are to accrue to society by the results of education in a clearer understanding of the duties and relations of life and the appreciation of rights and privileges, results intimately connected with the supply of human wants, national prosperity and national happiness. The Sherman school system, public and private,
both in respect to matter and manner has no superior in the United States. Its efficiency is demonstrated by
the absence of illiteracy from the city, while its rapid development is due to a public sentiment which regards ignorance as a misfortune to society and a disgrace to the ignorant. In the manner of the system neither the plant nor the flower is neglected, and in its matter the people are prepared for self preservation, parenthood
and citizenship. The result of the preparation is evidenced by the good order, refinement and civic virtue of the people, these conditions constituting and environment which repels the hurrah element with which the morals of the rudimentary stages of society are too often saturated. In this lovely city a lewd house is not tolerated;
the refinements and elegancies of life are seen on every hand, and progress and contentment take the place of the too common rule of progress and poverty. Four out of five of the heads of families own houses they inhabit, and it is the pardonable boast of the citizens that there is not a mortgaged house nor a mortgaged store of goods in the city. To what is all this due if not to a rightly directed education with which sound religious principles and natural resources are made elements of harmony in the desire for advancement by honorable plans?

    PUBLIC SCHOOLS
At the head of the public school buildings stands the Washington School, which, exclusive of its campus and
the aids and instrumentalities of education with which it is liberally provided, cost $30,000. It is an elegant brick structure, three stories high, with ornamental trimmings, large Gothic windows, and so recessed as to afford those great desiderata - a sufficiency of light and ventilation. It contains twelve school-rooms, beside cloak-rooms, a large office, and an assembly room 40x60 feet. In no case are pupils of a different grade taught
in the same room, the advantage of the arrangement consisting in the pupils receiving the undivided attention of the teacher. The professorship in this, as in the other public schools, is composed of wide-awake teachers, under the control of an able superintendent, who sees that particular attention is paid to the department and application of the pupils.
The Franklin School, also a brick building of beautiful architectural lines and finish, the general outlines conforming with those of the Washington School, which is a finer building than the State University, has eight school and two recitation rooms, beside cloak rooms and other conveniences. Its furniture is of the latest style and best quality, single seats only being used. The building cost $25,000, is two stories high, and has a seating capacity of 406 pupils, with a due allowance to health space. Two other buildings, in design and capacity equaling the above, have been provided for and will be erected at an early day, affording a public school of magnificent proportions to each ward. Much praise is due to Mr. N. Somerville, the superintendent of public instruction, for his systematic endeavors in the line of his occupation - endeavors which give acquirements value as knowledge and value as discipline and which are crowned with a marked degree of success. The total scholastic population of the city is 1620, with a total daily attendance of 929, the remainder receiving instruction at the private schools. Of the total attendance 177 are colored, whose school, a handsome two-story structure, containing four well furnished rooms, is located in the edge of a beautiful grove in the northern section of the city. The progress of this school has been uniformly satisfactory, with a growing improvement as regards scholarship and deportment in all the grades.