Royse City, Texas

Everything Royse City is known for

2 songs mention this city 0 artists from here

Music in Royse City

Songs About Royse City

Royse City
Little Mazarn
83%
"Royse City"
Ain't My Day
Corey Kent
15%

Artists From Royse City

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Rivers & Roads in Song near Royse City

Songs written about the waterways and highways that run near Royse City.

Sabine River 13 songs Interstate 20 13 songs Sulphur River 2 songs Trinity River 11 songs Interstate 45 8 songs

History of Royse City

The Three-Towered Church That Burned in 2024 RoadyGoat

Near the corner of North Josephine Street stood one of the most distinctive buildings in Rockwall County, until fire took it. The First United Methodist Church congregation organized in 1887, meeting in a schoolhouse until it bought land from the McCasland family, the same pioneer clan tied to the town's founder, and finished a new sanctuary in 1904. The design came from James E. Flanders, one of Dallas's earliest architects, who gave it a striking Western Gothic look: three entry towers of deliberately mismatched heights said to represent the Trinity, arched stained-glass windows, and decorative wood shingles in the gables. It earned a Recorded Texas Historic Landmark designation and stood for 120 years as a downtown landmark. Then, on May 28, 2024, fire destroyed the historic church, a gut-punch for a town that prides itself on still-standing brick and timber from its earliest decades. The congregation survived the loss of its building; the irreplaceable 1904 architecture did not. If you're passing the site, you're looking at where one of the town's signature structures stood for more than a century. (Source: Texas Historical Foundation; THC marker.)

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The Handshake That Named a Town RoadyGoat

You're rolling into a town that exists because one man cut a deal with a railroad. In 1885, word spread that the Missouri, Kansas and Texas line, the railroad everybody called the Katy, would push from Greenville toward Dallas across this corner of Rockwall County. Garrett Burgess Griffin Royse, a Kentucky-born landowner known to everyone as Byrd, was instrumental in getting that line routed through here, and family tradition holds that he offered to donate the ground for a depot if the Katy would name the stop after him. In 1886 Royse platted the townsite and sold the first lot to Alf Reese and his nephew Albert Royse. The depot went up, the name stuck, and a brand-new railroad town was born out of open blackland farm country. Nearby Fate had been bypassed by the tracks, so its merchants simply came to where the trains stopped, some literally dragging their wooden storefronts over on rollers. By 1890 Royse City already counted around 1,000 people. The whole place is a monument to a single rule of frontier Texas: the railroad decided who lived and who died. (Source: Handbook of Texas; City of Royse City.)

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He Learned to Tell Time By the Sun to Catch the Gospel Hour RoadyGoat

One of the most important voices in Southern gospel music grew up hoeing cotton in these fields. Glen Weldon Payne was born October 20, 1926, into the Royse City area, the son of cotton farmers, and as a Depression-era kid he was so hungry for gospel music that, while working the rows, he taught himself to read the position of the sun so he'd know when to bolt home for the noon Stamps-Baxter Quartet broadcast on Dallas radio. His grandmother wrote the Stamps-Baxter Music Company on his behalf, he earned a scholarship to their singing school, and in 1944 the company hired the teenager to sing on the radio. He went on to lead the legendary Cathedral Quartet for decades alongside bass singer George Younce, racking up Dove Awards and inductions into multiple gospel halls of fame before his death in 1999, on the group's farewell tour. Not bad for a farm kid who first kept time by a Rockwall County sky. (Source: Handbook of Texas; Texas Gospel Music Hall of Fame.)

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Bankhead Highway in Collin County

1916

Known as the Broadway of America and one of the nation’s earliest transcontinental highways, the Bankhead highway was created through the federal aid road act of 1916. The roadway extended from Washington, D.C., to San Diego, California, by way of eastern and southern states.
 In Texas, the Bankhead highway was completed in the 1920s and is still used today. Crossing approximately 850 miles in the state, the Bankhead, also known historically as State Highway 1, provided an engineered roadway for local and regional traffic and promoted tourism. The Bankhead includes segments of roads and trails forged during Spanish colonial, Republic of Texas and statehood eras.
 Between Greenville and Rockwall, the Bankhead is now known as state highway 66, including the section through Collin county. The highway became main street in Royse City, and the commercial downtown area developed along the road. Commercial resources included auto repair garages, gas stations, diners and cafes, tourist camps and courts, motels and hotels, and highway markers.
 Many communities along the Bankhead can attribute their development to this historic highway, supporting commerce and growth through the 1950s. The exponential growth of automobile traffic led to wider, safer and faster interstate systems. As one of the most important transportation corridors in the state’s history, the Bankhead highway played a critical role in the economic vitality of the state and the region.

Historical Marker →

Royse City, TX

1885

Royse City is on State Highway 66 five miles northeast of Rockwall in the northeastern corner of Rockwall County. It was named for G. B. Royse, who in 1886 platted the townsite and sold its first lots. People began settling in the area in 1885, when it became known that the Missouri, Kansas and Texas Railroad would be constructed through that part of the county. Many of the settlement's earliest residents and businesses were attracted from the nearby community of Fate, which the railroad had bypassed. The new community grew from the beginning. The first business, a general merchandise store, opened in December 1885 and was followed soon after by a variety of business houses, some of which were pulled on rollers from Fate. In 1886 a post office opened in Royse City. By 1890 the community had a population of 1,000, two cotton gins, a gristmill, and twenty businesses. It was first incorporated in 1891; this incorporation was voted out in 1902, only to be reinstated in 1906. In 1896 the number of businesses in the community stood at forty, and by 1898 local schools employed four teachers and registered 204 students. Considerable business in marketing, cotton trading, cottonseed oil manufacturing, and cotton ginning took place in the early twentieth century. By 1914 Royse City had a population of 1,300 and forty businesses. The population remained over 1,000 during the 1920s and 1930s, and in 1936 fifty-four businesses operated in the town. From 1950 to 1960 the population increased from 1,190 to 1,243, and the number of businesses declined from fifty-five to forty-five. By 1964 Royse City had decreased to a population of 1,100, but afterward grew to 1,535 in 1970, 1,566 in 1980, and 1,800 in 1988. The business community decreased in size between 1960 and 1970 but increased from forty businesses in 1980 to fifty-six in 1988. In 1990 the population was 2,206. The population was 2,957 in 2000.

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Fate, TX

1880

Fate is on State Highway 66 and the Missouri, Kansas and Texas line four miles northeast of Rockwall in northern Rockwall County. The community's name derives from the nickname, "Fate," given to Lafayette Brown, one of the area's early settlers, by his wife. A post office was established in the community in July 1880. By the mid-1880s Fate had a school, a cotton gin, two general stores, and a population of seventy-five. In 1886, in anticipation of the arrival of the Missouri, Kansas and Texas, Dr. Wylie T. Barnes platted a new community on his land about a half mile northeast of Fate, calling the new community Barnes City. The railroad built through later that year, and the residents and businesses of Fate moved to the new community. Seeking to avoid having to apply for a new post office, the residents of Barnes City changed their community's name to Fate in February 1887. By 1890 the community had fifteen businesses, a two-room school, two churches, and a population of 100. In 1899 the first rural mail route in Texas began operation from Fate. The population of the community continued to grow steadily through the 1890s and the first decades of the twentieth century, reaching 299 by 1920. The business community witnessed a similar growth, and Fate's first bank opened in 1907. Fate was incorporated in 1908. The federal highway reached the town after World War I . During the 1920s and 1930s the small community began to decline. While agriculture remained the area's major occupation, better roads and automobiles took trade from local merchants to those in larger towns. Nonetheless, a bank, a drugstore, and a number of stores remained in business at Fate. Fate's school eventually dropped its high school grades, and the community's population declined to 194 by 1930 and 127 by 1940. During the 1940s and 1950s Fate lost businesses and residents to the growing cities of Dallas and Fort Worth. The number of businesses operating in Fate declined from fifteen to six during the 1940s. Since 1950, however, the population of Fate has increased, rising to 475 by 1990. In the 1990s many of the town's residents held jobs in the Dallas area, but Fate was still able to support four businesses. In 2000 the population was 497.

Tsha Handbook → · 4.4 mi away

Graham Point Cemetery

1860

Named for Daniel Boone Graham and his family who settled in this area in the mid-1800s, this cemetery, established on Graham's land, served the Graham Point and Union Valley communities for more than 100 years. One of the earliest graves was that of Resina Graham in 1860. Many early graves were marked with bois d'arc posts that either burned or were removed. Several pioneer families and their descendants are buried here, including early settlers named Hurst, Lindsey, McCasland, Partin, and Williams. The last recorded burial occurred here in 1991.

Historical Marker → · 4.3 mi away

Mt. Pleasant Hill Cemetery

1880

This cemetery served early settlers of the rural area which later developed as the Nevada community. Also known as South Church Cemetery, this burial ground was connected with Mt. Pleasant Hill Baptist Church, which was also located on this site. Members organized after Mt. Pleasant Church, located between Lavon and Farmersville, split in 1882. Roland and L. Josephine (Butler) Gooch sold land for both the church and burial ground. The earliest marked grave here dates to 1880 and those interred include veterans of conflicts dating to the Civil War. In 1947, Mt. Pleasant Baptist Church disbanded. By 1950, this cemetery ceased to be an active burial site. Historic Texas Cemetery - 2007 (Supplemental plaque) The historic name of the church known as South Church was Pleasant Hill Baptist Church. The official name of the cemetery was Pleasant Hill Cemetery.

Historical Marker → · 4.5 mi away

Nevada, TX

1927

Nevada is on Farm Road 1138 two miles east of Lavon Lake in southeastern Collin County. The rich soils of the Blackland Prairies and the water provided by Bear Creek attracted settlers to the area as early as the mid-1840s. The first organized community in the area was McMinn Chapel, established in the early 1840s four miles north of the site of present Nevada. For the most part the residents of the community were the family and friends of its founder, John McMinn. In 1861 Granville Stinebaugh moved to Texas from Missouri and purchased 160 acres of land near McMinn Chapel. Shortly thereafter the town of Nevada was established on his farm and named by Stinebaugh in honor of Nevada Territory, which he had passed through on his way to search for gold in California. The town received a post office on August 3, 1880. Eight years later the tracks of the St. Louis Southwestern Railway reached the community. In 1889 Nevada incorporated, choosing an aldermanic form of government. From the 1880s to the 1920s Nevada served as a retail market for a small but populous farming territory. The population of the town grew from an estimated fifty in 1885 to 578 in 1920. By 1925 Nevada provided its 625 residents with paved roads, electricity, a telephone exchange, twenty-five businesses, and a high school. On May 9, 1927, a tornado struck the town. Twenty-seven people were killed, seventy-five were injured, and approximately $1 million in property damage occurred. Nevada never recovered from this disaster. The Great Depression and the mechanization of farming further retarded the growth of the town. By 1950 the population had decreased to 386, and it remained near this figure for the next thirty years. In 1980 Nevada had an estimated 400 residents served by four businesses. In 1990 the population was 456. The population was 563 in 2000.

Tsha Handbook → · 5.2 mi away

Things to Do in Royse City

historical 15.1 mi away
Southfork Ranch

The filming location of TV's Dallas. JR Ewing lived here.
quirky 18.6 mi away
Southfork Ranch

The Ewing family TV mansion from the Dallas soap opera sits on two hundred acres in Parker Texas and is open for tours every day. JRs bedroom is there. The…

Everything Near Royse City

566 stories, landmarks & places within ~20 miles — the nearest 200 are listed here — the same local lore RoadyGoat plays as you drive through.

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