Hunt County, Texas

Everything Hunt County is known for

0 songs mention this city 1 artist from here

Music in Hunt County

Songs About Hunt County

No songs reference Hunt County yet.

Artists From Hunt County

R
Ryan Beaver
country Pop: 31

Rivers & Roads in Song near Hunt County

Songs written about the waterways and highways that run near Hunt County.

Sabine River 10 songs Interstate 20 10 songs Red River 50 songs

History of Hunt County

Farmersville's Notorious Son: Tex Watson RoadyGoat

1945

Charles "Tex" Watson (born December 2, 1945) grew up in Farmersville, Texas, in Collin County, where he was an honor student, football captain, and newspaper editor at Farmersville High School before attending the University of North Texas in Denton. In 1967 he moved to California and fell in with the cult led by Charlie Manson, living with the group at the Spahn Ranch movie set. On August 8-9, 1969, acting on Manson's orders, Watson led the group that carried out the Tate-LaBianca murders -- killing pregnant actress Sharon Tate and four others at a home on Cielo Drive, then Leno and Rosemary LaBianca the following night, seven victims in two nights. Watson fled to Texas but was extradited to California, and in 1971 he was convicted on seven counts of first-degree murder and one count of conspiracy. His death sentence was commuted to life in 1972. He later became a born-again Christian and ordained minister and remains incarcerated in California.

16.5 mi away

Dranes, Arizona Juanita [Blind Arizona]

1894

Gospel singer Arizona Juanita "Blind Arizona" Dranes, of African-American and Mexican-American heritage, was born on April 4, 1894, in Greenville, Texas. Her mother was Cora Jones, and her father's surname was Dranes. She lost her sight in an influenza outbreak early in her childhood. She attended the Institute for Deaf, Dumb and Blind Colored Youths (later Texas Blind, Deaf, and Orphan School ) in Austin from 1896 until 1910, when she graduated. There she received her first music lessons. Some years after graduation, perhaps about 1920, she helped Ford Washington McGee, a singing preacher, establish a Church of God in Christ in Oklahoma City . She later lived in the musically rich Deep Ellum district of Dallas, where she learned piano and developed her own distinct "sanctified" style of playing, known as "gospel beat." It combined the ragtime and barrelhouse traditions to produce a rolling blues sound. Dranes's piano playing was accompanied by her penetrating singing, which derived from the emotional shout song of traditional gospel music . Eventually she became a regular pianist and singer for various traveling ministers of the Church of God in Christ, a national Black Pentecostal church that has since developed into the largest of its kind. Dranes spent much of this early period with COGIC traveling through Texas and Oklahoma and aiding in the "planting" of new churches. In the mid-1920s she settled back in the Dallas-Fort Worth area and was soon spotted by OKeh Record Company scout Richard M. Jones. The company took Dranes to Chicago for recording sessions in 1926 and again held sessions in Dallas in 1928. During her contract with OKeh she recorded more than thirty tracks, including such gospel standouts as "I Shall Wear a Crown" and "My Soul Is a Witness for the Lord." Though she was a top gospel star for the OKeh label, correspondence between Dranes and the record executives indicate that she was often underpaid. With the onset of the Great Depression , Blind Arizona Dranes fell into obscurity. She continued her performances in church services and may have lived in Memphis and possibly Oklahoma City in the 1930s. Her last known public concert was held in Cincinnati in 1947. In 1948 she moved to Los Angeles, where she lived until her death on July 27, 1963. Her death certificate listed her profession as a missionary and that she was buried at the Paradise Memorial Park in Santa Fe Springs, California. She was one of the most influential and innovative gospel pianists of the twentieth century.

Tsha Handbook →

Hart, Martin D.

1861

Martin D. Hart, state senator and Unionist, the son of Capt. John Hart, was probably born in Indiana in 1821. The family moved to Texas around 1833 and settled first at Jonesboro and later in Warren. When John Hart organized the company known as Hart's Mounted Men in 1836, his fifteen-year-old son, Martin, joined. They served in the Army of the Republic of Texas for three months, from July 20 to October 20, 1836. On March 10, 1842, Martin Hart married Mary Ann Green in Fannin County. The couple eventually had five children. In 1849 Martin and his brother Hardin moved to Hunt County, where they operated a successful law office. By 1860, according to the Hunt County tax rolls, Hart, with more than 5,000 acres valued for tax purposes at $20,542, was the second richest man in the county. He was elected to the Texas House of Representatives, where he served from 1857 to 1859. He was then elected state senator. During the election of 1860 he supported John Bell, presidential candidate of the Constitutional Union party . After the election, as the thirst for secession swept through Texas, Hart publicly opposed the movement in a series of speeches he made in the county courthouse. When Governor Sam Houston called the Texas legislature into special session in January 1861, Hart traveled to Austin. There he signed the Unionist "Address to the People of the State," which attempted to counter the secessionist argument. After Texas secession in February 1861, he resigned his Senate seat and returned to Hunt County. He resumed his law practice and, in July of 1861, organized and was elected captain of the Greenville Guards, a company of mounted volunteers. He wrote Governor Edward Clark , pledging the company's services "in defense of Texas whenever she is invaded or threatened with invasion." In the summer of 1862 he received a Confederate commission with permission to raise a company and operate in northwest Arkansas. Using his commission to travel through Confederate lines, he and his followers marched to southwest Missouri, where they apparently received Union army papers. Hart returned to Arkansas, led a series of rear-guard actions against Confederate forces, and is alleged to have murdered at least two prominent secessionists. He and some of his followers were captured by Confederate troops on January 18, 1863, and taken to Fort Smith, where he and his first lieutenant, J. W. Hays of Illinois, were court-martialed and hanged, on January 23, 1863. They were buried in unmarked graves under the tree where they were hanged. In 1864, when the federals took Fort Smith, Hart's body was exhumed and reinterred in the national cemetery there. Contributions from Unionists and federal soldiers purchased a headstone.

Tsha Handbook →

Carlisle, Lallie P.

1902

(1866-1949) First woman in Texas to hold an elective public office. Upon death of her first husband, E. W. Briscoe, she was appointed, April 17, 1902, by the Commissioners' Court to complete his term as clerk of Hunt County. At that time women could not vote in Texas. A ruling by the Attorney General of Texas upheld the appointment. Mrs. Briscoe, mother of five, later married C. C. Carlisle.

Historical Marker →

The Old Greenville Post Office

1942

Tradition says mail came from Jefferson in early days and was dropped at a saloon. Greenville Post Office was created in 1847, and occupied rented quarters until 1910, when this structure was built. Neo-classic in style, it became an important element in architectural development of the city. In 1930, it was enlarged. Audie Murphy joined the army in this building on June 20, 1942, his 18th birthday; later he became the most decorated soldier of World War II. The city of Greenville acquired the structure in 1973 for historic preservation. (1973)

Historical Marker →

Audie Murphy Birthplace

1925

Audie Leon Murphy, born near Kingston in Hunt County, became the most decorated American combat soldier of World War II and later a Hollywood actor.

Historical Marker → · 3.9 mi away

Richardson, Wilds Preston

1880

Wilds Preston Richardson, United States Army officer, was born to Oliver Perry Richardson and Hester Foster (Wingo) Richardson in Hunt County, Texas, on March 20, 1861. His mother died in 1862 when he was just sixteen months old, and his father married Susan A. Neilson in late 1864. The family lived in Ladonia, Texas, in Fannin County, where Richardson attended school. His father was a farmer, as recorded on the 1870 census. After his father's death in 1873, he moved to Lamar County and lived with his cousin, teacher and school superintendent John James Richardson, and his wife. Texas Congressman David B. Culberson made the appointment for Wilds Preston Richardson to the United States Military Academy at West Point, New York, and he entered in 1880. After graduating he was commissioned a second lieutenant in the Eighth United States Cavalry, on June 15, 1884. He served in California and at various posts on the western frontier, including Apache territory. Richardson was promoted to lieutenant on December 16, 1889, and returned to West Point as an instructor in 1892. He held this appointment for six years. In August 1897 he reported to Alaska, where he remained, in various military capacities, for the next twenty years. His activities in the territory included selection of sites for and oversight of construction of American military posts. He was appointed president of the Alaska Roads Commission in March 1905 and directed the extensive federal road-construction project there. His most important work in this capacity involved building a 380-mile road from Valdez, on the southern Alaskan coast, northward to Fairbanks, in the interior. In recognition of his efforts the road was named the Richardson Trail by executive order. Richardson's work in Alaska was recommended by a succession of secretaries of war, and he rose through the ranks to captain in 1898, major in 1904, lieutenant colonel in 1911, and colonel in 1914. American entry into World War I in April 1917 brought Richardson a promotion to the rank of brigadier general on August 5, 1917. He was appointed to the command of the Seventy-eighth Infantry Brigade, Thirty-ninth Division, then at Camp Beauregard, Louisiana, in March 1918. With his division he arrived at Brest, France, on September 3, 1918, and participated in some of the closing movements of the war. Because of his experience in extreme weather conditions in Alaska and his general record as a soldier, Gen. John J. Pershing , commander of American forces in Europe, placed him in command of United States troops in the short-lived Allied invasion of northern Russia. At Murmansk he resolved confusion among allied commands. After the war Richardson returned to the rank of colonel and on October 31, 1920, retired from the army. He was awarded the Distinguished Service Medal on April 14, 1922. Drawing upon his experience, he wrote and published the article "Alaska" in the January 1928 edition of the Atlantic Monthly . This essay, in addition to mildly criticizing the federal government's construction of a little-used railroad into Alaska, called for government incentives to attract settlers to the territory, for increased territorial home rule, and for intensified advertising of Alaska as a tourist and sportsman's attraction. The article generated some discussion, likely due to the author's criticism of the manner in which Alaska had been developed. He wanted to see the territory settled and developed gradually and rationally rather than in a way that would either thoughtlessly exploit its natural resources or prohibit their development. Richardson lived all of his retired life at the Army and Navy Club in Washington, D.C. In addition to his membership in this club, he belonged to the Military Order of the Carabao, the Alfalfa Club of Washington, the Lambs of New York City, and the University Clubs of New York City. He died at Walter Reed Hospital in Washington, D.C., on May 20, 1929, and was buried at West Point.

Tsha Handbook →

Everything Near Hunt County

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

Explore Hunt County on the Map
All music from Texas → · Browse more cities