Gainesville, Texas
City in the United States in Cooke County
About Gainesville
Gainesville is a city in and the county seat of Cooke County, Texas, United States and is part of the Dallas-Fort Worth, TX-OK combined statistical area. Its population was 17,394 at the 2020 census. It is part of the Texoma region and is an important Agri-business center.
Text from Wikipedia, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0.
How Gainesville is governed
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Residents of Gainesville
Registered voters elect the officials below.
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Mayor
Executive
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The city's chief elected official. Presides over the executive branch, proposes the budget and represents the city.
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City Manager / Administrator
Executive
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The professional administrator who runs day-to-day operations (in some cities appointed by the council instead of the mayor).
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Police Chief
Administration & departments
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Leads the police department.
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Fire Chief
Administration & departments
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Leads the fire and emergency services department.
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Public Works Director
Administration & departments
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Streets, water, sewer, and city buildings.
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Finance Director
Administration & departments
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The budget, taxes, and city accounts.
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Planning & Zoning Director
Administration & departments
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Land use, zoning, building permits.
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Parks & Recreation Director
Administration & departments
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Parks, programs, and public facilities.
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City Council
Legislative
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The elected body that passes ordinances, sets the tax rate and approves the budget.
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City Clerk
Administration & departments
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Keeps the official records, runs meeting agendas and, often, local elections.
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City Attorney
Administration & departments
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The city's lawyer; advises officials and prosecutes ordinance violations.
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Boards & Commissions
Legislative
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Citizen advisory bodies, such as planning, zoning appeals and library boards.
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Municipal Court
Judicial
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Hears traffic, ordinance and other minor cases.
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Municipal Judge
Judicial
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Presides over the municipal court.
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- Website
- gainesville.tx.us
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Population over time
From 2,667 in 1880 to 17,394 in 2020 (+552.2%).
Show the numbers
| Year | Population |
|---|---|
| 2020 | 17,394 |
| 2010 | 16,002 |
| 1880 | 2,667 |
History
Founded in 1850, the city of Gainesville was established on a 40-acre (16 ha) tract of land donated by Mary E. Clark. City residents called their new community "Liberty", which proved short-lived, as Liberty, Texas, already existed. One of the original settlers of Cooke County, Colonel William Fitzhugh, suggested that the town be named after General Edmund Pendleton Gaines. Gaines, a United States general under whom Fitzhugh had served, had been sympathetic to the Texas Revolution.
The first hint of prosperity arrived with the Butterfield Overland Mail stagecoach in September 1858, bringing freight, passengers, and mail. In 1860, Cooke County voted against secession. In 1862, during the Civil War, the Great Hanging at Gainesville, a controversial trial and lynching of 40 suspected Union loyalists, brought the new town to the attention of the state and came close to ripping the county apart. In the decade after the Civil War, Gainesville had its first period of extended growth, catalyzed by the expansion of the cattle industry in Texas. Gainesville, only 7 miles (11 km) from the Oklahoma border, became a supply point for cowboys driving herds north to Kansas. The merchants of Gainesville reaped considerable benefits from the passing cattle drives.
Within 20 years, its population increased from a few hundred to more than 2,000. Gainesville was incorporated on February 17, 1873, and by 1890 was established as a commercial and shipping point for area ranchers and farmers. In the late 1870s, two factors drastically altered the historic landscape of North-central Texas. The first of these was barbed wire. In 1875, Henry B. Sanborn, a regional sales agent for Joseph Glidden's Bar Fence Company of DeKalb, Illinois, traveled to Texas. That autumn, he chose Gainesville as one of his initial distribution points for the newly invented barbed wire, which his employer had patented the previous year. On his first visit to Gainesville, he sold 10 reels of the wire to the Cleaves and Fletcher hardware store—the first spools of barbed wire ever sold in Texas.
World War II had an enormous impact on Cooke County. Camp Howze, an army infantry training camp, was established on some of the best farmland in the county. The construction of the camp helped bring Cooke County out of the Great Depression by providing jobs. The county population doubled and the area boomed.
Since then, tourism has brought renewed prosperity to the area. The return of Amtrak on June 14, 1999, brought Gainesville back full circle to one of the original sources of its growth and success. In the early 1990s, Gainesville had 600 businesses and a population of 14,587. By 2020, the population had grown to 17,394.
Courthouse
Gainesville is home to a courthouse with an octagonal rotunda topped by stained glass, erected in 1910. "The 1912 Cooke County Courthouse was designed by the Dallas firm of Lang & Witchell. The courthouse was designed in the Beaux Arts style with some Prairie Style features and influences from famed Chicago architect Louis Sullivan. The courthouse in the center of Gainesville features black and white marbled interiors and a tall central atrium capped by a stained glass skylight under the tower." The courthouse is undergoing a major renovation project, resulting in the move of many county offices to surrounding buildings.
In 1911 a monolith topped with a statue of a Confederate soldier was placed on the lawn outside the courthouse. The inscription of the plaque beside it reads "no nation rose so white and fair none fell so pure of crime", in a statement typical of Confederate monuments that minimized the human impact of slavery and romanticized the Lost Cause of the Confederacy. In 2020, County Commissioners voted to retain the courthouse's Confederate monument.
Camp Howze, World War II
Gainesville was once home to Camp Howze, one of the largest infantry replacement training centers during World War II. Only a few remnants of the camp still exist, but they are now located on private property.
Railroad
Railroads across Texas changed the nature and reach of commerce when they were built through and into areas. When the first railroad arrived in Gainesville, it improved the city's economics. For the first time, reliable, timely transportation meant goods and people could go vast distances. Gainesville was connected to the outside world in a whole new way with the coming of the railroads. For example, when the GC&SF arrived in 1887, goods could travel directly to or from Gainesville, directly to Chicago and Galveston, on the same railroad. Both were major transportation hubs during that age, and still are today.
Original companies and dates of arrival in Gainesville:
The Denison and Pacific Railway (1879) (now a part of UP via the MKT) – route: Denison, TX to Gainesville via Whitesboro, TX
Gainesville, Henrietta and Western Railway (1886) (now a part of UP via the MKT) – route: Gainesville to Wichita Falls, TX
Gulf Colorado & Santa Fe Railway (1887) (now a part of BNSF) – route: Fort Worth to Oklahoma City
These turned into major railroads:
Missouri–Kansas–Texas Railroad (MKT) is now the Union Pacific, but the lines owned in Gainesville were abandoned long before the UP bought the MKT in 1988. The MKT through town was abandoned around 1969 after having providing service for 90 years.
Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway (ATSF) is now the BNSF Railway.
The Great Hanging
In October 1862, during the Civil War, Confederate authorities in Cooke County arrested about 150–200 men suspected of Unionist sympathies. A “Citizens’ Court” of local men - lacking legal authority - convicted many of them of treason. Under mob pressure, executions escalated: 41 were hanged in Gainesville and at least two others killed elsewhere, making it the largest mass hanging in U.S. history.
Text from Wikipedia, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0.