Editing Decatur, Texas (section)

===After the Civil War===
By the late 1860s, several stores and a hotel had been established. In 1882, the [[Fort Worth and Denver Railway]] reached the town,<ref name="Barton"/> and Decatur was added to the [[Butterfield Overland Mail in Texas|Butterfield Overland]] mail route.

In 1881, the Wise County Old Settlers Reunion held their first meeting. This has become an annual tradition in Decatur, and the reunion continues to take place during the last full week of July.

Decatur Baptist College (now [[Dallas Baptist University]]) was established in Decatur in 1898. It was the first two-year institution of higher education in Texas. In 1965, the college moved to Dallas to be in a larger population center. The former [[Administration Building, Decatur Baptist College|Administration Building]] then housed the Wise County Heritage Museum. The building was destroyed in a fire in 2023.<ref>{{Cite web |first=Austin |last=Jackson |date=2023-03-18 |title=Wise County Heritage Museum lost to blaze |url=https://www.wcmessenger.com/articles/wise-county-heritage-museum-lost-to-blaze/ |access-date=2023-03-18 |website=Wise County Messenger -}}</ref> It is one of five sites in Decatur listed on the [[National Register of Historic Places listings in Wise County, Texas|National Register of Historic Places]].

The [[Wise County Courthouse (Texas)|Wise County Courthouse]] was designed by [[James Riely Gordon]], the master architect of Texas courthouses. Completed in 1896, the building is an example of Gordon's Signature Plan. He used corner entrances (making for short halls) to draw in the breeze, which was pulled up through a central atrium like a chimney, providing excellent air circulation. The exterior is Texas red granite (like the Capitol) with terra cotta ornamentation. The almost pyramidal mass refers to 1,000-year-old churches in the south of [[France]]. The building has been praised, with its "sister" courthouse in Waxahachie, as "the zenith of Gordon's Richardsonian Romanesque work".<ref>{{cite book|last=Meister|first=Chris|title=James Riely Gordon: His Courthouses and Other Public Architecture|year=2011|publisher=Texas Tech University Press|place=Lubbock, TX|ISBN= 978-0-89672-691-8}}</ref> It is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

Another historic building found on the east side of the city is the [[Texas Tourist Camp]], dating back to 1927.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Details - Texas Tourist Camp Complex - Atlas Number 5497005275 - Atlas: Texas Historical Commission |url=https://atlas.thc.state.tx.us/Details/5497005275 |access-date=2024-08-19 |website=atlas.thc.state.tx.us}}</ref>

In 1962, Eddie Wayne Hill, lead guitarist for [[Tommy & the Tom Toms]], and drummer Joel Colbert, were killed when their convertible collided head-on with a gravel truck on State Highway 114 south of Decatur. Country singer [[Charley Pride]] was more fortunate, surviving a mid-air crash with another plane over Decatur in 1980, though two people died in the crash.<ref>{{cite web | title = Charlie Pride Survives Midair Crash; 2 Die | publisher = Milwaulkee Sentinel | date = August 7, 1980 | url = https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=lYBQAAAAIBAJ&sjid=ChIEAAAAIBAJ&dq=decatur%20texas&pg=6482%2C1039905 }}{{Dead link|date=September 2023 |bot=InternetArchiveBot |fix-attempted=yes }}</ref>