The History of Pecan Gap, Texas

From a gap made through a large pecan grove by the old Bonham and Jefferson road before the Santa Fe located a depot there, Pecan Gap took it's name. G. C. and Santa Fe Railroad came through Pecan Gap in February 1887. The population was about 500 then.

In 1884 the First Baptist Church was first organized. It was a brush arbor. In 1893 the First Baptist Church was built. Rev John Clem was founder and pastor.

In 1916 another Baptist Church was built near where Willie Barnett's house now stands, in the east part of town. Years later, the present Church was built.

In 1895 a Methodist Church was built. Rev. Marshall McGee was pastor. In 1920 it was rebuilt where it stands today. Rev H. B. Chambers was pastor at that time. In later years it has been remodeled.

The Church of Christ was built in 1922. It was sold and moved in 1976.

The first bank was organized in 1901. It failed during the great depression on December 23, 1929.

The first gin was built in 1894. Lee Morgan rebuilt it in 1920. At the peak of cotton growing in this area there were three gins in Pecan Gap.

In 1907 B. L. Webb built a big general store on the corner of main street.

T. G. Mayo built the first school in Pecan Gap in 1882 at the old Blair place just south of town near the rock pit.

The second school was a two story wooden structure built in 1914 on the land sold to them by Dr. S. N. Brown in the extreme west part of town on the county line. An auditorium of wood was later built nearby in 1926.

The fourth school building as constructed in 1938 mostly by WPA workers. It was a one story white brick with a gym included. It has had a new cafeteria and library built in 1991. In 1992 a building was built for three class rooms adjacent to the east of the main building. In 1992 the entire building was remodeled on the inside.

In 1901 an oil mill was built. It was in operation for 21 years and due to financial failure work was discontinued in 1922, but the building was not torn down until 1931.

Texas Power and Light Co. was established here in 1924. Before that there was a small home built plant.

Natural gas came to Pecan Gap in 1930.

In 1902 South Western Telephone Exchange came to town. The same year a short distance system was also built by W. A. Cockerell who later sold out to A. T. Shipman & sons. They operated until around 1935 or 1940 when they sold to Mr. Leonard. In 1961 a Mr. Whitworth bought it and he in turn sold out to the Continental GTE company in 1991.

A city lake was built in 1934-1936. The sewer system was finished in 1962-1963.

In the earlier years these were the Doctors who practiced here - Dr. S. M. Brown, Dr. Wylie Ward, Dr. Rountree, Dr. Warren, Dr. Starks, Dr. Forrester, Dr. Shellhorse and Dr. Frank Chiles.

These were the drug stores - Hardy's, Houchin Starks, Price and Morehead, Clowers.

This is a list of the businesses Pecan Gap has had in the past years. J.S. Reid & Sons, B. L. Webb, Phillips, W. G. Morgan, Union Produce, Frank Wayne Shaw, Wood West, H. A. & Sam Morgan, B. B. Thomas, Odie Muncy, Schooler Car Agency, Andrew and Will Reid, Clem Lumber Co., C. C. Lumber Co., Furniture Store and Undertaker, O. L. Scott Produce House, Buddie Geist Barber Shop, Mr. Milam, Burt Sullivan, Buddie Siddle meat market, Wylie Merrill, Carl Wood, Filling Stations W. M. Thomas, Budge Deatherage and Doe Brooks cafe, W. B. Lyons, John Garner, Ed Humphries, Carl Houston, Ethel McDonald, Pool hall, Ed Humphries Ice House, Bill Sandlin 5-10, Myron Shaw, Bill Hopkins and Ruby Ward, Beauty shops, Vivian Kavenough, Vivian Thompson, Malcomb and Erlene Woodard, Debbie Stephens, Shirley Plumber and Ann Bowen.

Because of the 1980 drought drinking water was hauled in by milk trucks from August 27 until October 27, 1980.

The following were instrumental in getting money from the government for a new lake - Alfred Conley, Carl Langston, Tim Houston, Jack Willmon Danny LaCook and John Reid. Bids for the new lake were let on June 30, 1981.

(This information was made possible by notes from Mrs. Coy Reid and Ann Brooks Bowen.)


Delta County Sesquicentennial Notes

By Duane Davis Olson


Pecan Gap as it was in 1885
Newspaper article from "The Pecan gap New Era", published in 1903. This paper was one of the last published in Pecan Gap, ceasing publication in 1907.
Long before there was any town here or any railroad in Delta county, our location was known as Pecan Gap, it's name originating amongst our abundant growth of pecan timber which bordered each side of an open, gladey strip of land separating the timber of North Sulfur and the scrubby growth then known as the Jernigan thicket. This strip of open glade also served to connect long prairie with sandy prairie west of us.
Pecan Gap, in those days, was the favorite location for the various cattlemen of this section to corral their cattle and mark and brand their calves and yearlings.
The prairie adjacent to the Gap afforded a luxuriant growth of native grass and furnished as fine a pasture as the most fastidious cattle could desire. The thicket then supplied the horses and cattle ample pasturage and sufficient shelter to keep them in fairly good shape through the winter.
This vicinity was then very thinly populated, there being only about 150 people living within the present bounds of our present school district (1903). Ths following named gentlemen and their families constituted the citizenship of the community as it was then:
Rev. Pete Merrill, Alex Merril, Ike davis, Frank Snowden, Thomas Hall, Elliot Hutchinson, Thomas Edwards, Jim Walker, Tyre Garrard, Albert Richardson, Bal Yeager, John Gardner, Lem Garner, Rev. W. C. Crawford, Morgan Clowers, Bill Pickard, Uncle Jerry Ashley, Rev . Jack Clem, Jim Wiggins, Abner Houchin, Jim Dennis and perhaps a few others.
Our first school building, which was built in the year 1882, on the lot now occupied by our townsman, Billie Blair, as a residence, not only served as a school but all denominations held their public religious services here and all our practical meetings were held herein.
Honey Grove was our market place; Ben Franklin was our post office and voting place.
The black land here sold at that time at $2.50 to $5.00 per acre.
Nearly all our people who were here first knew they had a fine opportunity to 'live easy' but all most of them failed to recognize the wonderful changes the influx of 'foreigners' and the scrambling for our cheap, rich agricultural lands was soon to make and did not avail ourselves of the opportunity to buy a good home at the above quoted figures.


History of Delta County Communities
Pecan Gap

The first school built in 1880 was a crude little log cabin, 12 feet by 14 feet, costing $25. Professor Lem Stenson, the first teacher, had only ten or twelve pupils attending.
One year later, the progressively spirited pioneer settlers discarded the log cabin and built a 20 by 30 foot frame building. This school building furnished a place for entertainment of the citizens, for political meetings and religious services.
Before the turn of the century, a third school was built, this was a two story frame about 60 by 90 feet.
The second teacher at Pecan Gap was W. A. Cockrell who, when a young man of 25 years, came from Alabama to teach in Texas. He was assisted by Miss Laura Houchin.
Next came W. L. Mayo who came from the state of Kentucky to teach school here. After teaching a few years in Pecan Gap, Prof. Mayo moved to Cooper and established a private school. And the fourth teacher was Prof. R. E. Miller.
In the spring of 1913 the Pecan Gap common school district consolidated with the SunShine common district forming Pecan Gap Independent School District. Residents voted a 25 cent school bond tax and built a $12,000 two story brick building in the fall and winter months.
After this came teachers such as T. D. Mayo, a nephew of W. L. Mayo, L. L. Manley, Rev. Edge, Rev. H. B. Chambers and Miss Bessie Scott, A. M. Sprinkle, W. B. Wheeler, B. M. Williams, a Mr. Moses, J. Curtis Pardue, teacher and principal 1930-1935, Jess E. Mosley.
In 1939 the citizens of Pecan Gap erected a $75,000 school plant. This plant was used as a twelve grade accreditation school until consolidation with Ladonia to form the Fannindel district. The facilities now house the elementary grades of Fannindel.
But back in the middle 1880's, Ben Franklin was considered the post office and voting place for residents of the Pecan Gap area. However, in 1888, a post office was established in Pecan Gap with George W. Merrill as the first postmaster, appointed on March 24. He was succeeded by Gilbert D. Wood, April 8, 1891; William C. Rountree, August 11, 1893; James R. Clem, march 3, 1894; Charles W. G. Owens, July 23, 1897; William J. Gideon, February 9, 1903;Albert J. Neece, April 17, 1908; Green B. Taylor, June 17, 1913; Josephine Taylor, June 4, 1919; John W. Patterson, July 19, 1919; james A. Gray, April 4, 1924; Mrs. Cora J. Price, June 30, 1935, Una B. Walker, September 1, 1936; Ralph Richardson, June 30, 1958; and T. C. Wilkite, March 3, 1961.
Just over four decades ago, the city of Pecan Gap was recognized nationally as the fifth largest fur market in the country. The national fame being attributed to the Shipman brothers, Vivian and Homer.
The brothers started their fur business by accident as youngsters. Through hard work and by refusing to heed the advise of their elders, they made a boyhood venture into a business that grossed nearly $200,000 in 1947.
It was in 1937 that the Shipman firm was the fifth largest among all wholesale houses in the country, however, ten years later their national ranking had dropped slightly, yet in 1947 they handled more than 554,000 furs, the purchases coming from Texas, Oklahoma, Louisiana and Arkansas.
The Shipman fur firm was founded in about 1907 by Vivian, Homer and Finis, while they were youngsters at Selfs in Fannin County. They discovered that extra spending money could be made from selling the hides of animals they trapped in the nearby Red River bottom. Their first shipment to a market, which included pelts they had bought from friends, was valued at $27.
The brothers in 1908, worked with their father, A. T. Shipman in establishing a telephone exchange at Selfs, while continuing the fur business as a sideline. The telephone system, which began with one telephone, grew to include five rural exchanges at Pecan Gap, Ben Franklin, Roxton and Telephone.