Denison Commercial Historic District

Founded with the coming of the railroad to North Texas in 1872, Denison is 20 to 30 years younger than most of its neighboring cities. Nevertheless, in its earliest years, Denison was the transportation and supply center for much of Texas and the Indian Territory. In the late 19th century, its population, services, wealth, and power rivaled that of other major Texas cities. With as many as 13 tracks, 52 daily passenger trains, and a passenger station costing a quarter of a million dollars in 1910, the city owed its prosperity to the railroad. Unlike other cities in the area, Denison has retained a majority of its early downtown buildings, resulting in a rich architectural and railroad heritage. In addition to the deteriorating, but still impressive, Union Terminal, the district contains everything from bracketed Italianate commercial facades to a glossy, streamlined Art Moderne storefront of the 1940s. Some of these structures are endangered, and only one has been officially recognized for its architectural and historic value.

Denison was founded by a group of developers and investors, in conjunction with officials of the Missouri-Kansas-Texas (MKT or "Katy") Railroad. Railroad executives, building the first track south across Indian Territory, wanted a town near the proposed Red River crossing, to serve as a gateway and distributing point into Texas. When nearby Sherman refused to provide the necessary financial inducements, Katy managers met with a group of local investors headed by W. B. Munson, Sr. The developer purchased land north of Sherman (closer to the river), sold lots at auction, and laid out the new town just in time for the arrival of the first Katy train from the north, in December 1872. Named for Katy vice president George Denison, the settlement was some 20 to 30 years younger than nearby towns, yet Denison soon outnumbered its largest neighbors.

On the city's first anniversary in 1873, the Denison Daily News reported that "....Within the city limits there are 3,952 persons, 451 wooden and 18 brick or stone buildings, not one of which was built a year ago. There are nine hotels, five dry goods stores, five bakeries, six meat markets, 20 saloons." The city was apparently a rowdy, wild-west town in its early years, as the first city directories confirm a profusion of watering holes, shooting galleries, furnished rooms, and the like.

With the coming of additional railroads, Denison became the connecting point for the Katy from the north (Kansas City and St. Louis) and the Houston & Texas Central from the Gulf coast. The city and region prospered in a manner that has been unequaled in the area to this day. In 1880, Grayson County had 38,000 residents--more than any other Texas county. Denison boasted its own mule-drawn streetcars the next year, and in 1886, had its own water supply system.

In April of 1885, 13 years after its birth, Denison was either the initial or terminal. point for 13 railroads. An 1888 city directory reveals that the respected Dallas Morning News maintained a branch office in the railroad town. By 1890, the younger Denison, with 13,850 people, was larger than the county seat of Sherman. The population edge held forth until the 1930 census revealed the damage, locally, of a nationwide railroad strike in 1922-3. Between 1920 and 1930, the population dropped from 17,000 to 13,800. The MKT Railroad moved many jobs and families to Waco. Accounts of that period relate that half of the stores on Main Street were empty and that there were hundreds of vacant houses. Construction apparently came to a standstill, as virtually none of the buildings in the district were constructed or even remodeled in the years following the strike.

The strike underscored the fact that Denison was totally dependent on the railroad for its existence. A 1908 publication of the Chamber of Commerce boasted that Denison "had 100 miles of railroad trackage within the city limits."

A similar brochure, written seven years later, claimed "Denison is one of the largest less-than-car-load freight distribution points south of St. Louis and Kansas City...At 21,000 citizens, it is the largest city within a 75-mile radius, making it a shopping and marketing center....52 passenger trains on five railroads arrive and depart every 24 hours from the new Union depot."

The "new" depot, built in 1909-11 at a then incredible sum of $250,000, still stands as a faded centerpiece for the city. Main Street's business district begins directly across from the station, and ends eight blocks later, at the foot of the huge high school building. Designed by San Antonio architect Henry Phelps, the depot is with little doubt the city's finest piece of architecture. Multistoried grocery warehouses and ice plants dating from the turn of the century also line the railroad tracks downtown. These structures are representative of the city's function as a major cattle-shipping center in the late 19th century. One of the local ice companies pioneered the cross-country shipping of beef carcasses in refrigerated freight cars. Denison was also an important supply point for Indian Territory just across the river, as well as a distribution center for southbound goods.

Six additional buildings in the district are documented as being designed by architects. The source of the designs for the remaining buildings is unknown, although it is likely that several of them were architect designed. Both Pierre Lelardoux and Joseph Schott were architects who resided in Denison in the 19th century. Three buildings in the district are attributed to Schott, and one to Lelardoux, though it is likely that they designed others.