Athens, Texas

Everything Athens is known for

4 songs mention this city 4 artists from here

Athens, Texas, a city in Henderson County, is known as the "Black-Eyed Pea Capital of the World" and is also recognized as the birthplace of the hamburger. While not a major music hub, Athens is home to several artists, including hip-hop artist Tay Money and country musicians Frank Foster, Jake Penrod, and Mark Winston Hagood. The city is also mentioned in songs like "(We’re Not) The Jet Set" by George Jones.

With four artists calling it home and three songs mentioning it, Athens, Texas, has a notable, if understated, connection to the music world.

Music in Athens

Songs About Athens

(We’re Not) The Jet Set
George Jones
51%
"Athens, Texas"
With Crippled Wings
Lift to Experience
35%
"From Athens to London to Paris to Rhome"
Bubba Sparxxx
Bubba Sparxxx
7%
"I just hitch hiked my way from Athens to Cascade"
Those Feat’ll Steer Ya Wrong Sometimes
Little Feat
4%
"Athens, Gouldbusk, Troy, and Miami"

Artists From Athens

T
Tay Money
hip-hop Pop: 45
F
Frank Foster
country Pop: 43
J
Jake Penrod
country Pop: 24
M
Mark Winston Hagood
country Pop: 4

Rivers & Roads in Song near Athens

Songs written about the waterways and highways that run near Athens.

Trinity River 8 songs Interstate 20 10 songs Sabine River 10 songs Interstate 45 2 songs

History of Athens

Henderson, James Pinckney

1836

James Pinckney Henderson, statesman, soldier, and first governor of the state of Texas, the son of Lawson and Elizabeth (Carruth) Henderson, was born in Lincolnton, North Carolina, on March 31, 1808. He attended Lincoln Academy and the University of North Carolina, studied law, and was admitted to the bar in 1829. After serving as aide-de-camp and major in the North Carolina militia in 1830, he was elected colonel of a regiment. He moved to Canton, Mississippi, in 1835, became interested in news of the Texas Revolution , and began enlistments for the Texas service. He arrived at Velasco, Texas, on June 3, 1836, and was commissioned by David G. Burnet as brigadier general and sent to the United States to recruit for the Texas army. Henderson organized a company in North Carolina and sent it to Texas, reputedly at his own expense. Upon his return to Texas in November 1836, he was appointed attorney general of the republic under Sam Houston and in December 1836 succeeded Stephen F. Austin as secretary of state. Early in 1837 Henderson was appointed Texas minister to England and France and was commissioned particularly to secure recognition and treaties of amity and commerce. Largely through his efforts both England and France entered into trade agreements with the republic and ultimately recognized Texas independence. While in France, Henderson met Frances Cox of Philadelphia, whom he married in London in October 1839. He returned to Texas in 1840 and set up a law office at San Augustine. In 1844 he was sent to Washington, D.C., to work with Isaac Van Zandt in negotiating a treaty of annexation with the United States. The treaty was signed on April 12, 1844, but was rejected by the United States Senate on June 8, 1844, and Henderson, over his protest, was ordered home by President Houston. Henderson was a member of the Convention of 1845 , was elected governor of Texas in November 1845, and took office in February 1846. With the declaration of the Mexican War and the organization of Texas volunteers, the governor asked permission of the legislature to take personal command of the troops in the field. He led the Second Texas Regiment at the battle of Monterrey and was appointed a commissioner to negotiate for the surrender of that city. Later he served with the temporary rank of major general of Texas volunteers in United States service from July 1846 to October 1846. After the war he resumed his duties as governor but refused to run for a second term. He returned to his private law practice in 1847. After election by the Texas legislature to the United States Senate to succeed Thomas J. Rusk , Henderson served in the Senate from November 9, 1857, until his death, on June 4, 1858. He was buried in the Congressional Cemetery, Washington. In 1930 his remains were reinterred in the State Cemetery in Austin. Henderson County, established in 1846, was named in his honor.

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Reynolds, Carl Nettles

1927

Carl Nettles Reynolds, Major League Baseball player, was born to a farming family in LaRue, Henderson County, Texas, on February 1, 1903. He was the fourth child of Robert Peel Reynolds and Ann Elizabeth (Nettles) Reynolds. Reynolds attended the Alexander Institute (later Lon Morris College, closed in 2012) in Jacksonville, Texas. Moving on to Southwestern University in Georgetown, he was a multi-sports star and earned letters in baseball, football, basketball, and track. Primarily a shortstop on the baseball team, Reynolds was discovered during a game between Southwestern and Trinity College in Waxahachie in 1926 by Roy and Bessie Largent, a husband-and-wife scouting team employed by the Chicago White Sox. Roy Largent had come to the game to scout a Trinity pitcher but was impressed by Reynolds, who was subsequently signed by the duo. In early 1927 Reynolds, who had become a football and basketball coach at Lon Morris College, resigned to join the White Sox spring training camp in Shreveport. Reynolds's first stop as a professional was close to home, as the White Sox assigned him to the Palestine Pals of the Class D Lone Star League. Converted to an outfielder, he led the team in hits (180) and batting average (.372). Intrigued, the White Sox called Reynolds up for the final month of the season. He made his big-league debut on September 1, 1927, against the Cleveland Indians and got his first big league hit the next day. In 1928 Reynolds had his first full season with the White Sox, for whom he hit .323 in part-time duty. Promoted to full-time starter (primarily in right field) in 1929, he hit .317 and led the team in runs batted in (RBIs), albeit with a mere sixty-seven (the lack of offensive power was a major reason for the team's 59-93 record). After the season, on November 9, 1929, Reynolds married eighteen-year-old Ruth Matilda Dayvault, who later became a nurse. They had two sons, Carl Jr. (born 1934) and Robert (born 1942). In 1930 Reynolds had his best season. He drove home 104 runs while batting .359 with 202 hits, including eighteen triples and twenty-two home runs. Three of those home runs were consecutive-including two against future Hall-of-Famer Red Ruffing-and took place on July 2 in the second game of a doubleheader against the New York Yankees at Yankee Stadium. After Reynolds slipped to .290 due to injuries in 1931, the White Sox traded him to the Washington Senators. While with the Senators in 1932, Reynolds was involved in an incident that made headlines nationwide. During the first game of a July 4 doubleheader against the Yankees in Washington, Reynolds crashed into Yankee catcher Bill Dickey while scoring. It wasn't clear that Reynolds had touched the plate, however, so his teammates in the Senators' dugout yelled at him to go back and do so. Dickey, who had been knocked out in a play at the plate during a recent game, thought Reynolds was returning to take another shot at him, so he punched him. This was the only blow struck, but it broke Reynolds's jaw. American League President Will Harridge fined Dickey $1,000 and suspended him for thirty days. With his jaws wired shut, Reynolds was out for almost six weeks. The injury led to a life-threatening incident. On July 19 Reynolds was in a taxicab when he became ill and started to vomit. Thinking quickly, his wife snipped the wires with a pair of manicure scissors so Reynolds could open his mouth, thus averting death by aspiration. When the Yankees returned to Washington in August, Reynolds and Dickey were both back in action, and police officers were stationed on the field to deter any misconduct. The players remained docile. Reynolds finished the 1932 season with a creditable offensive year (a .305 batting average in 406 at bats). Nevertheless, the Senators traded him to the St. Louis Browns before the 1933 season. Reynolds responded with a decent season (a .286 batting average in 475 at bats), but there were few witnesses. The combination of the Great D

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Denius, Franklin Wofford

1944

Franklin Wofford Denius, highly-decorated World War II veteran, philanthropist, attorney, and Austin businessman, played a significant role in the development of Austin in the 1950s and 1960s. Born in Uniontown, Pennsylvania, on January 4, 1925, he was the only child of Frances (Cain) Denius and Samuel F. Denius, a dentist and oil entrepreneur. When he was still an infant, Franklin and his family moved to his mother's hometown of Athens, Texas, where his father invested in the oil and gas industry . The family lived with his maternal grandparents, Smith M. and Mattie (Wofford) Cain, and by the mid-1930s his parents divorced. His uncles John and Wofford Cain assumed the role of father figures and influenced his education and career. When thirteen years old, Denius enrolled in Schreiner Military Institute in Kerrville, Texas, and completed high school and one semester of college. At the age of seventeen, he enlisted in the U.S. Army in the summer of 1942. Due to his age and education, the army sent him to The Citadel in Charleston, South Carolina, where he completed two semesters of college until he was called to active duty. Denius completed basic and instruments-and-survey training at Camp Roberts in California, then travelled to England in January 1944 for Ranger training in preparation for Operation Overlord, the codename for the Allied forces' plan to invade German-occupied Western Europe at Normandy, France. He was assigned as a forward artillery observer to Battery C of the 230th Field Battalion of the Thirtieth Infantry Division (dubbed "Old Hickory") but landed with the Twenty-ninth Infantry on Omaha Beach as part of the second wave of the D-Day invasion in June 1944. Denius, called "Tex" by his fellow soldiers, saw combat with his assigned company at Saint-Lô, the Battle of the Bulge, and the Battle of Mortain, and followed up the carpet bombing for Operation Cobra to witness the liberation of Paris. At Mortain, Denius, members of Company C, along with other companies of the Thirtieth Infantry defended the U.S. Army's hold of Hill 314, a priority to slow the German counteroffensive. During the battle, however, five German armored divisions completely surrounded the hill and cut off and barraged the U. S. soldiers with heavy fire for six days. Dubbed the "Lost Battalion," they suffered heavy casualties and depleting stores of food, water, and medical supplies. Since efforts to air drop supplies failed to reach them, Denius coordinated with other observation teams of nearby artillery units to deliver supplies to his men by using hollowed-out artillery shells typically used to disperse propaganda. For his war service, he received four Silver Stars, two Purple Hearts, a Presidential Citation, the Belgian and French Croix de Guerre, and Chevalier de la Légion d'Honneur. He was discharged in 1946. After the war, Denius enrolled at the University of Texas. In 1949 he graduated with degrees in law and business and married Charmaine Hooper of Athens, Texas, on November 19, 1949. That same year he joined the Austin law firm of Looney, Clark, and Moorhead-a firm noted for having powerful political clients, including President Lyndon Baines Johnson . Denius became a named partner in 1960 and stayed at the practice until he began his own firm in 1976. He worked for Lyndon Johnson on his personal business affairs and over time became a close friend, even attending Johnson's Inaugural Ball in 1965. Specializing in oil, gas, and utility law, Denius represented many national companies in front of the Texas Railroad Commission and negotiated municipal contracts for gas, transit, phone, and cable television services with the city of Austin. Denius served as a director of the Aztec Oil and Gas Company and the Delhi-Taylor Oil Corporation and president of the Southern Union Gas Company, founded by his uncle Wofford Cain and Clint Murchison . Recognized for his civic and business leadership early in life, he was name "Austin's outstan

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Courts Under the Oaks

1850

Henderson County was established in 1846, the year after Texas was annexed by the United States. In 1850, after previous reductions in the county's original size, the present boundaries were set by the Texas Legislature. The restructuring resulted in the need for a new county seat, and the Legislature appointed a commissioners court to select possible sites and to conduct an election that would determine the permanent seat of government. The voters chose the property of Matthew Cartwright, a prominent East Texas landowner, for the townsite of Athens. In Samuel Huffer's survey for the new county seat, this site was set aside as the public square. Before a courthouse was constructed here, early county and district court sessions were conducted on the Square under a large shady oak tree. The first district court term, held in October 1850, was presided over by Judge Oran M. Roberts, later a Texas Supreme Court Justice and governor of the state. Cases he heard included charges of murder, larceny, gambling, defaulting jurors and assault and battery. Begun before the development of Athens, the Courts Under the Oaks reflected the democratic goals and ideals of the pioneer settlers of Henderson County.

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Rupert Talmage Craig

1889

Son of Henry Clay and Dana (Moss) Craig, was born on November 17, 1889, in Shiloh, Kentucky. He began setting type in a print shop at the age of 10 and at the age of 16 became the youngest licensed printer in Kentucky. He worked as a printer for several major U. S. newspapers before coming to work for the "Athens Review" in 1907. He purchased the "Kemp News," a small town newspaper, and became its publisher at the age of 18. Craig married Kentuckian Clara E. Rhodes in 1911 and in 1912 they moved to Chandler, Texas, where he owned the "Chandler Times" newspaper. He purchased the "Athens Review" in 1916. The "Athens Review" became a successful daily newspaper. Craig's distinctive editorials on politics and local events earned him the respect of area citizens and prominent state and national politicians. He served as regent at Texas Woman's University, and was a member of the Texas Economic Commission, the Texas Centennial Commission, and the Texas State Democratic Executive Committee. The Southern Journalism Congress named him "Country Editor of the South" in 1938. Craig sold the "Athens Review" in 1941 after 25 years as publisher. He died in Athens on February 15, 1968; a U. S. Senator attended his funeral. Sesquicentennial of Texas Statehood 1845 - 1995

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Fisher, Richard Columbus

1914

(May 20, 1888 - Sept. 4, 1932) A native of Falls County, R. C. Fisher graduated in 1913 from what was then Prairie View Normal College. The following year he began his career in education at Blackshear Colored School in Athens. Fisher later became principal of the school, which grew from a seven-grade facility to twelve-grade accredited high school during his years of leadership. In 1932, students moved into a new brick building, renamed Fisher High School in his honor.

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Everything Near Athens

122 stories, landmarks & places within ~20 miles — the same local lore RoadyGoat plays as you drive through.

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