Name: Mabank, Texas
Address: Mabank, TX

Two Ranchers, One Railroad, One Blended Name RoadyGoat

1899

Mabank owes its name to two ranchers who moved fast when a railroad came through. In 1900 the Texas and New Orleans Railroad, a Southern Pacific line, cut its Dallas-to-Beaumont route straight across the Mason-Eubank Ranch, bypassing the older village of Lawndale by less than a mile. Rather than watch commerce pass them by, ranch owners G.W. Mason and Thomas Eubank set aside a one-square-mile townsite on February 23, 1900, right where the tracks ran. For the name they simply fused their surnames: 'Ma' from Mason, 'bank' from Eubank. That August the founders started the Mabank Land Company to sell lots, the Mabank Banner newspaper followed in 1909, and formal incorporation came on October 9, 1911. The town that grew up beside the rails carried both founders' names in a single word.

The Town That Moved RoadyGoat

Mabank exists today because an entire community decided to uproot itself and move. The story starts with Lawndale, a settlement founded in 1887 by a merchant named John R. Jones, established enough to have its own post office. But in 1900 the Southern Pacific ran its new line past Lawndale — missing it by less than a mile — and put its depot in an empty field instead. In the nineteenth century, being bypassed by the railroad was a death sentence for a town. So two men, G. W. Mason and Thomas Eubank, set aside a one-square-mile tract along the tracks and platted it on February twenty-third, 1900, naming it by welding their own surnames together: MA from Mason, BANK from Eubank. And the people of Lawndale did something remarkable — they moved. They relocated their homes, stores and lives to the new site. The old town vanished into the fields, and Mabank was born, all for the promise of the railroad.

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The Town First Named for a Bolt of Cloth RoadyGoat

1846

Before it was Mabank, this spot answered to a stranger name: Lawn City, for a bolt of cloth. Lorenzo D. Stover first settled the area in 1846. Decades later, in 1887, a merchant named John R. Jones, from Goshen in Henderson County, bought and platted the site. Jones stocked his store with lawn, a lightweight, sheer cotton fabric prized for summer dresses, and he liked it enough to name the whole community after it. When the post office arrived in November 1887, the name was softened to Lawndale. That village thrived until the railroad bypassed it in 1900, pulling residents a mile north to the new town of Mabank. The dress-goods name faded, but for thirteen years a Kaufman County town was quite literally named after fabric on a shelf.

Gun Barrel City - The Bootleggers' Straight Shot

1969

Town incorporated 1969 on Cedar Creek Reservoir in Henderson County. Named for the straight dirt road bootleggers and outlaws used during Prohibition, which ran rifle-bore-straight to the Trinity River bottoms. Official motto: We Shoot Straight With You. Logo features crossed rifle barrels.

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Mabank, TX

1900

Mabank is on U.S. Highway 175, Farm Road 90, and the Southern Pacific Railroad, sixteen miles southeast of Kaufman in the southeastern corner of Kaufman County. The area was first settled by Lorenzo D. Stover in 1846. Other settlers soon moved in, and the site was purchased and platted in 1887 by John R. Jones, a merchant from nearby Goshen in Henderson County. Jones named the site Lawn City, for a popular cotton dress material he sold in his store. The name was changed to Lawndale, probably when the community received a post office in November 1887. In 1900 the Southern Pacific Railroad bypassed Lawndale by less than one mile. G. W. Mason and Thomas Eubank, the owners of the nearby Mason-Eubank Ranch, across which the rail line was constructed, realized the potential that the railroad represented and quickly set aside a one-square-mile tract which they called Mabank, a combination of the name Mason and Eubank. They platted the site on February 23, 1900. A post office began operations at Mabank in the same year. Because of the railroad and the fertility of the soil Mabank grew rapidly. A number of Lawndale residents and businesses, disappointed that the railroad had missed their town, moved to the new community. In August 1900 the town's founders established the Mabank Land Company to sell land. An ambulance service operated in the community around 1900 and the Eubank funeral home opened in 1904. In 1910 the community had a population of 412, three churches, a Masonic lodge, a public library, and a baseball club. In 1907 a canning company went into business, and in 1909 the Mabank Banner began publication. The town was incorporated on October 9, 1911. With agriculture in the surrounding area as its economic foundation, Mabank continued to grow. Cotton was the region's principal crop prior to World War I . Considerable oil exploration took place around Mabank between 1917 and 1925, although little oil was discovered. The town's population reached 963 and its business enterprises numbered seventy by 1936. A bank was opened in Mabank the following year. Unlike many small Texas towns, Mabank did not decline notably between the end of World War II and the mid-1960s. Its population stood at 988 in 1945, 896 in 1955, and 995 in 1966, while the number of local businesses remained relatively stable at forty. After 1966 Mabank grew dramatically, largely due to the completion of Cedar Creek Reservoir (also known as Cedar Creek Lake) in 1965. The reservoir has attracted new residents—both retirees and younger people who commute to jobs in the Dallas area—as well as tourists to the town. Mabank had a population of 1,500 in 1976 and 1,739 in 1990. In 2000 the community had 2,151 inhabitants.

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Mabank

1840

Originally part of the George T. Walters Survey, this acreage in the 1840s and '50s belonged to many absentee landowners including Sam Houston. In 1887 John R. Jones, a merchant from nearby Goshen, and his wife Joella platted and developed a town called "Lawn City" (1 mi. NE). Soon a post office was established and the name changed to "Lawndale". When the Texas & New Orleans Railroad bypassed Lawndale in 1900 on its route from Kemp to Athens, it ran through the northern part of the Mason-Eubank Ranch. The owners, Thomas H. Eubank (1859-1952) and rancher-banker G. W. ("Dodge") Mason (1858-1917), set aside one square mile of their holdings for a town. The name "Mabank" was formed by combining the names of the two landowners. Lawndale families and merchants began moving to Mabank. The town grew rapidly, boasting a park, depot, and stock loading pens. There was a gin, post office, cafe, hotel, and several mercantile businesses. Later, church lots were set aside for Baptist, Methodist and Presbyterian congregations. The Baptist church erected a building for a community house and school. The economy of the area depended first on farming and later on ranching. The 1966 development of Cedar Creek Lake strengthened the community.

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Site of Centerville

1848

Replaced Buffalo as county seat, 1848, due to central location in county; on land donated by James Harper Starr (1809-90), Texas statesman. Clerk's records were kept in a log cabin courthouse. When county was reduced in area, 1850, county seat was moved to Athens, and Centerville died. (1973)

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Wilkin, Marijohn

1920

Country Music Hall of Fame songwriter and publisher Marijohn Wilkin was born Marijohn Melson in Kemp, Texas, on July 14, 1920. She was dubbed the “den mother of Music Row,” because she helped so many younger songwriters during her career. Wilkin was the daughter of Ernest and Karla Melson and grew up in Sanger, Texas, just north of Dallas, where she learned to play the piano at an early age. Wilkin’s father, a baker and musician, died of cancer when she was only thirteen years old. After graduating from Sanger High School, she attended Baylor University in Waco. However, she soon transferred to Hardin Simmons University in Abilene, where she was the first female to join the renowned Cowboy Dance Band, thereby giving her the opportunity to travel around the country. While in Abilene, she also met and married Bedford Russell, although soon afterward he was killed in World War II . After earning a B.A. in English in 1941, Wilkin moved to Lovington, New Mexico, where she became a schoolteacher. She remarried and had a son, John Buck, whom she nicknamed “Bucky.” However, she soon divorced and moved to Tulsa, Oklahoma, where she worked as a teacher, began writing songs, and eventually married Art Wilkin. In 1955 Red Foley, a musician and talent scout from the Ozark Jubilee network TV show, heard Wilkin’s son, Bucky, playing the guitar and helped book him on another TV show called Junior Jubilee . The family soon relocated to Springfield, Missouri, where the show was taped. While in Missouri, Marijohn began working in a piano bar and singing with Red Foley’s road show. In 1958 a booking agent named Lucky Moeller heard Wilkin performing in the piano bar and persuaded her to move to Nashville. At first she performed in the Voo Doo Room piano bar on Printers Alley but then began working for Cedarwood Publishing Company, owned by Jim Denny. In the ensuing years Wilkin had made a name for herself as a songsmith by writing or co-writing numerous hits, including “Long Black Veil,” “Cut Across Shorty,” “Grin and Bear It,” “P.T. 109,” and “Waterloo.” By 1963 she managed to have an average of one of her songs per week recorded by other artists. In 1964 Wilkin started her own publishing company, Buckhorn Music, named after her son. In 1965 she signed a relatively unknown young songwriter named Kris Kristofferson to the publishing firm. That year she also formed the Marijohn Singers, a backup vocal group. After divorcing her third husband, she met and married record producer Clarence Selman who helped her form the Nashville Songwriters Association in 1967. However, after writing only a couple songs with Selman, the couple divorced. The stress of long hours at work, coupled with alcohol and substance abuse, left Wilkin depressed, and she twice tried to take her own life. By the late 1960s, she had fled to Europe to escape the career pressures she faced in the United States. When she returned to Nashville a few years later, she decided to confront her problems through religious faith, rather than drugs and alcohol. In 1974 she wrote “One Day at a Time,” a song for which she credited Kris Kristofferson as co-writer. The tune won the Gospel Music Association’s Dove Award in 1975, became a Number 1 hit for Christy Lane in 1980, and has since been recorded by more than two hundred artists. Wilkin’s success with “One Day at a Time,” helped her launch a successful stint as a gospel music songwriter. Throughout her career, Wilkin wrote songs for a diverse group of musicians, including Lefty Frizzell , Stonewall Jackson, Patsy Cline, Jimmy Dean , Eddie Cochran, Johnny Cash, Rod Stewart, Joan Baez, LeAnn Rimes, and others. In 1975 Wilkin was inducted into the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame in honor of her achievements as one of the most successful early female publishers and songwriters. In 2005 she was honored by the SOURCE Organization as a pioneering Music Row businesswoman. Following a series of heart problems, Wilkin underwent triple bypass surger

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Guy, Leona Ruth

1931

Leona Ruth Guy, medical technologies innovator, educator, pathologist, and blood banking promoter, published or presented more than 100 scientific papers and organized or participated in more than thirty-five blood banking workshops. She was born on March 17, 1913, in the small town of Kemp in North Texas to Minnie Elizabeth (Murphy) Guy and Henry Luther Guy. In 1931 she began her undergraduate degree at Baylor University. She waited tables and tutored to afford tuition. In 1934 she earned her bachelor's degree and moved to Dallas to study medical technology at the Baylor University College of Medicine. From 1939 to 1946 Guy served as the chief medical technologist at Hendrick Memorial Hospital ( see HENDRICK MEDICAL CENTER ) in Abilene, Texas. In 1946 she attended Southwestern Medical College (later University of Texas Southwestern Medical School) in order to earn her master's degree. While studying at Baylor Dallas she worked at Baylor Hospital's William Buchanan Blood Bank, the first blood bank in Dallas, and partook in the first conferences of the American Association of Blood Banks and the Texas Association of Blood Banks (later the South Central Association of Blood Banks), both in 1947. Upon earning her master's degree in 1949 she continued on to Stanford University, where she earned her doctorate in 1953. After earning her Ph.D., she returned to Dallas and began working on blood banking at local, national, and eventually international levels. Guy served as president of the South Central Association of Blood Banks from 1964 to 1965. By 1954 she was teaching at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas and was on staff at Parkland Memorial Hospital. She was a professor of microbiology. In 1969 she named the first chair of the Department of Medical Technology. Together with E. Eric Muirhead, she founded the School of Medical Technology at the university. Guy retired in 1982 and became a professor emeritus of pathology. In 1973 she was presented with the American Association of Blood Banks John Elliot Award for service and dedication to the field. In 1987 she received the Women of Distinction Award from Baylor University. She was inducted into the Texas Women's Hall of Fame in 1989 and listed as a Baylor University Distinguished Alumni in 1994. In addition to her contributions to medical technology and research, Guy was instrumental in the development of "rape kits" (used to collect forensic evidence of sexual assault) for Parkland Memorial Hospital in Dallas. She was also active in women's organizations. From 1961 to 1962 she served as the president of Zonta Club in Dallas. She was on the advisory board of Dallas County Big Sisters, served as chair of Business Women in Art, and was president of the Business and Professional Women's Club of Dallas. She was also the doctor without a medical degree to receive an American Society of Clinical Pathology honorary fellowship. L. Ruth Guy died at the age of ninety-three on May 3, 2006, in Dallas. She was interred at Parkman-Hillcrest Memorial Park in Dallas. A professorship in medical laboratory science was established in her name at UT Southwestern Medical Center through a charitable trust that Guy created before her death.

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Mabank, Texas

Music in Mabank

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