Editing Gainesville, Texas (section)

==History==

Founded in 1850, the city of Gainesville was established on a {{convert|40|acre|adj=on}} tract of land donated by Mary E. Clark.<ref>{{citation|author= David Minor | title= GAINESVILLE, TX, Handbook of Texas Online |url= https://tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/heg01| access-date= January 1, 2014 |publisher = Texas State Historical Association }}</ref> 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]].<ref>{{cite book | url=https://archive.org/details/bub_gb_9V1IAAAAMAAJ | title=The Origin of Certain Place Names in the United States | publisher=Govt. Print. Off. | author=Gannett, Henry | year=1905 | pages=[https://archive.org/details/bub_gb_9V1IAAAAMAAJ/page/n132 133]}}</ref> 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 [[American Civil War|Civil War]], the [[Great Hanging at Gainesville]], a controversial trial and [[lynching in the United States|lynching]] of 40 suspected [[Union (American Civil War)|Union]] loyalists, brought the new town to the attention of the state and came close to ripping the county apart.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/jig01|author=McCaslin, Richard B.|title=Great Hamging at Gainesville|publisher=Handbook of Texas Online, Texas State Historical Association|access-date=2014-05-30}}</ref><ref>{{cite news
|title=Disaffection in Confederate Texas: The Great Hanging at Gainesville
|first=James|last=Smallwood
|journal=[[Civil War History]]
|volume=22
|number=4
|date=December 1976
|pages=349–360
|url=http://muse.jhu.edu/article/419420}}</ref> 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 {{convert|7|mi|0}} from the Oklahoma border, became a supply point for [[cowboy]]s driving herds north to [[Kansas]]. The merchants of Gainesville reaped considerable benefits from the passing [[cattle drive]]s.

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|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, Texas|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.{{citation needed|date=May 2021}} In the early 1990s, Gainesville had 600 businesses and a population of 14,587. By 2020, the population had grown to 17,394.<ref name="Explore Census Data"/>

===Courthouse===
[[File:Gainesville June 2017 09 (Cooke County Courthouse).jpg|thumb|[[Cooke County Courthouse]]]]

Gainesville is home to a [[courthouse]] with an [[octagon]]al [[rotunda (architecture)|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 architecture|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.<ref>{{cite web
  | title = Historic Courthouses in Texas
  | publisher = [[Texas Historical Commission]]
  | url = http://www.thc.state.tx.us/courthouses/chlistpages/cooke.html
  | access-date = 2007-07-23 |archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20070612132614/http://www.thc.state.tx.us/courthouses/chlistpages/cooke.html |archive-date = 2007-06-12}}
</ref>
[[File:Confederate monument detail Cooke County Courthouse Gainesville Wiki (1 of 1) (cropped).jpg|thumb|Detail of Confederate monument]]
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” referring to the [[Lost Cause of the Confederacy|Southern cause]].<ref>{{Cite web |last=Campbell |first=Steve |title=Gainesville’s dark past still stirring passions |url=https://www.statesman.com/story/news/2012/10/15/gainesvilles-dark-past-still-stirring-passions/9853690007/ |access-date=2024-10-26 |website=Austin American-Statesman |language=en-US}}</ref> In 2020, in the wake of the [[Murder of George Floyd|killing of George Floyd]] and the [[Removal of Confederate monuments and memorials|removal of Confederate statues]] elsewhere, County Commissioners voted to retain the courthouse's Confederate monument.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Carter |first=Simone |title=Gainesville's County Commissioners Vote to Keep Courthouse Confederate Monument |url=https://www.dallasobserver.com/news/gainesville-county-commissioners-vote-to-keep-courthouse-confederate-monument-11936116 |access-date=2024-10-26 |website=Dallas Observer |language=en}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |last=Carter |first=Simone |title=A Gainesville Confederate Statue is Gone. Activists Say There's More Work to Be Done. |url=https://www.dallasobserver.com/news/a-gainesville-confederate-statue-is-gone-activists-say-theres-more-work-to-be-done-12035619 |access-date=2024-10-26 |website=Dallas Observer |language=en}}</ref>

===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]].