DUANE
Duane's take
Here's how the official marker tells it, and I'll do my best to do it justice. Now, before the highway was king — before every Texan had a set of keys and a tank of gas — there was another way to get around. Electric railways.
Trolleys. Sleek, humming lines of wire and steel that connected Texas cities for more than forty years. And the very first one?
It started right here in Grayson County. That's not a small thing. That's where the story begins.
Two men — Fred Fitch and John P. Crerar — founded an enterprise in 1900. They called it the Denison and Sherman Railway, and on May 1, 1901, that line crackled to life.
One track. Ten and a half miles. Running between the cities of Sherman and Denison.
Simple enough on paper. But think about what it took to make it run. The company built a power plant.
They built offices, a car barn — all of it situated near this very site, roughly halfway between the two passenger stations. And to feed that power plant, they needed water. So they went and built a dam below Tanyard Springs.
The lake that formed behind it they named Wood Lake, and before long it wasn't just a utility — it was a destination. Passengers on the excursion trains could come out here and enjoy it. A little lake born out of necessity, put to work as pleasure.
Then came 1906. A second outfit enters the picture — the Texas Traction Company, also founded that year — and it broke ground on a new interurban line running from Dallas up to McKinney. Two years later, in 1908, the Texas Traction Company and the Denison and Sherman Railway merged.
And from that union, the network grew. More north Texas cities drawn into the web. The name changed too, eventually — by 1917 it was called the Texas Electric Railway.
A whole interconnected system humming across the northern part of the state. But you already sense where this is going, don't you. The automobile.
The roads. The freedom of going wherever you wanted, whenever you wanted, without a schedule or a fare. By the 1930s, the interurbans were in decline.
Couldn't stop it. The last train came through this site on December 31, 1948. New Year's Eve.
Running its route from Denison to Dallas. And then — nothing. More than forty years of electric railways, started right here in Grayson County, and they went out on the last night of a year, quiet as the wire going dark.
What the marker says
Electric railways (trolleys) provided convenient travel between many Texas cities for more than forty years. The first Interurban Line was established in Grayson County, connecting the cities of Sherman and Denison. Founded in 1900 by Fred Fitch and John P. Crerar, the Denison and Sherman Railway began operations on May 1, 1901, with a single 10.5-mile track. The company built a power plant, offices, and a car barn near this site halfway between its passenger stations in the two cities. In order to provide water for the power plant, they built a dam below Tanyard Springs, creating a small lake. Named Wood Lake, it provided recreational facilities for passengers on the line's excursion trains. The Texas Traction Company, founded in 1906, began construction of a second Interurban Line from Dallas to McKinney in 1906. Merged with the Denison and Sherman Railway in 1908, the company expanded its operations, eventually connecting a number of north Texas cities and changing its name to the Texas Electric Railway in 1917. The advent of automobile travel signalled the decline of the Texas Interurbans by the 1930s. The last train passed this site on December 31, 1948, on its route from Denison to Dallas.