When Grayson County was created in 1846, the legislature named the county seat in honor of General Sidney Sherman, a hero of the Texas Revolution (credited with raising the San Jacinto battle cry, “Remember the Alamo, Remember Goliad!”) and an early railroad promoter. Originally four miles west of its present site, the town was relocated in 1848 to an eighty-acre site deeded by the state. Sherman has historically benefited from good transportation connections, first due to its location adjacent to the Preston Road, the state’s first trail, extending from the Red River to Austin; then in 1858, as a station on the transcontinental Butterfield Overland Mail route, and next in 1872, the Houston and Texas Central Railroad. Sherman flourished between 1870 and 1880, boasting a sizable industrial base that included five flour mills, an iron works, the biggest grain elevator north of Dallas, and a large cottonseed oil mill. By the mid-1920s, Sherman had gained a reputation as the “Athens of Texas,” with its four colleges and numerous private schools and academies. Sherman continues today as a manufacturing and distribution hub.
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