Category: town names

Henry Karnes, Karnes City and Karnes County

Henry Wax Karnes was a soldier in the Texas Revolution and later was a Texas Ranger.  He was born in Tennessee in 1812 and grew up in Arkansas. He first came to Texas on a visit in 1828 and later returned for good in 1835 when he enlisted in the army under Captain John York.  One of the first battles he is known to have participated in was the Battle of Concepción (on the grounds of Mission Concepción) and later in the Siege of Bexar.  He was also associated with Erastus “Deaf” Smith and is thought to be the first to deliver the news to Sam Houston of the fall of the Alamo mission to Santa Anna.

concepcionmission

(Mission Concepción)

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Iowa Park, Texas

Iowa Park (33°57′13″N 98°40′16″W) is located in Wichita County, west of Wichita Falls.  It was founded in the 1880s by General Grenville M. Dodge.  At that time, it was mostly miles of prairie grassland growing on what appeared to be miles of sandy loam.  These conditions and the accessibility of surface water caused Dodge to feel that the location would be favorable for farming.  The area was reached by the Fort Worth and Denver City Railway and first named Dagger Switch, becoming a recognized township in about 1882 .  Shortly thereafter, the Texas Panhandle Company organized immigration trains to encourage settlers to relocate to the area, many coming from Iowa.

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Sherman, Texas

The town of Sherman is located in Grayson County.  It was named for General Sidney Sherman (1805-1873) who during the battle of San Jacinto on April 21, 1836 is the person credited for shouting the battle cry “Remember the Alamo! Remember Goliad!”  In 1846, the Texas legislature had created Grayson County out of Fannin County and designated Sherman as the new county seat.  Sherman gained its first post office in 1847.  It was fairly well established by 1850 and later became a stop on the Butterfield Overland Mail route.

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Lorenzo de Zavala

Manuel Lorenzo Justiniano de Zavala y Sáenz was the first vice president of the Republic of Texas, serving under interim President David G. Burnet.  He was born October 3, 1788 in the Yucatán area of Mexico and died November 15, 1836 at the age of 48 in Channelview, Texas.  His family heritage was Spanish and he was in the third generation of his family to be born on the American continent.

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Bonham, Texas

Bonham, Texas (33°35′2″N 96°10′54″W) is the county seat of Fannin County and is named for James Butler Bonham (1807-1836), one of the defenders who died at the Alamo.  He was born to James and Sophia Butler Bonham on February 10, 1807 in Red Banks, South Carolina.  Bonham was raised in South Carolina and attended but did not graduate from South Carolina College.  He then studied law and began a law practice in South Carolina in 1830 where he would remain until about 1834 when he moved west to Montgomery, Alabama, where the family also had relatives.

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