Saginaw, Texas

Everything Saginaw is known for

3 songs mention this city 1 artist from here

Music in Saginaw

Songs About Saginaw

Saginaw
Henson Cargill
80%
"Song about Saginaw"
Saginaw
Ivan
80%
"Song about Saginaw"
Thank Somebody Country
Cody Johnson
40%
"Saginaw"

Artists From Saginaw

P
Pop Poppins
pop

Rivers & Roads in Song near Saginaw

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

Texas State Highway 199 8 songs Interstate 20 13 songs Interstate 35 43 songs Trinity River 11 songs Brazos River 42 songs Interstate 45 8 songs

Musical Heritage

Townes Van Zandt Rests in the Settlement That Became Saginaw RoadyGoat

Just up the road at the old Dido Cemetery lies one of the most revered songwriters Texas ever produced. Townes Van Zandt, who wrote Pancho and Lefty and If I Needed You, was born in Fort Worth in 1944 into a family whose name runs deep through this corner of Tarrant County. Dido is the pioneer settlement that predates and neighbors Saginaw, the very community that lent its railroad-era name when the post office said no to keeping Dido. Van Zandt died on New Year's Day 1997, and half of his ashes were buried in the Van Zandt family plot near the cemetery entrance, alongside relatives including the Confederate-era physician Dr. Isaac L. Van Zandt, who had donated land here in 1894. His simple stone reads To Live's To Fly, a line from one of his own songs. The cemetery holds roughly a thousand pioneer graves off Morris Dido Newark Road, but quiet pilgrims still find their way to this one marker to leave guitar picks and bottle caps. (Source: Find a Grave; Dido Cemetery Association.)

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History of Saginaw

The Concrete Cathedrals of Saginaw RoadyGoat

As you drive down Saginaw Boulevard, you can't help but be struck by the colossal structures rising beside the railroad tracks. These aren't just buildings; they're Saginaw's concrete cathedrals. The Burrus Mill and Elevator Company set up here around 1936, and its first manager was a flour salesman named W. Lee O'Daniel—the same O'Daniel who put a band called the Light Crust Doughboys on the radio to sell Light Crust flour, then rode that fame all the way to the governor's office and the United States Senate. Built out in stages by Burrus and later owned by Cargill, the complex grew into the largest grain elevator in Texas and one of the largest in the nation. Imagine the noise and activity: trains rumbling in, trucks lining up for miles during harvest season, the constant hum of machinery lifting, cleaning, and storing the grain that fed millions. And it never stopped—grain and rail are still what this town runs on, and dozens of trains a day still work these tracks. Saginaw's skyline still belongs to the wheat crop.

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The Second-Biggest Mill in America Landed in a Town of 100 RoadyGoat

Saginaw's whole identity got poured in concrete in 1936, when the Burrus Mill and Elevator Company dedicated its giant new flour mill and grain elevator here. Brothers J. Perry Burrus and Jack Burrus built it, and on opening day a crowd reported around 700 strong came in from across the region to gawk at it. With good reason: at the time it was the largest grain elevator in Texas and the second largest in the entire nation, dropped into a farm community that had counted barely a hundred residents a decade earlier. The plant's signage announced what it made, the home of Light Crust Flour and Texo Feed, and its first manager was a salesman named W. Lee O'Daniel, who would ride flour and radio all the way to the governor's mansion and the U.S. Senate. The mill turned Saginaw from a wide spot on the railroad into a working grain town, and its successors still tower over the place today. Nearly everyone in early Saginaw worked the mills, the elevators, or the trains that fed them. (Source: Handbook of Texas; Castle Museum of Saginaw County History.)

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We're the Light Crust Doughboys from Burrus Mill RoadyGoat

Saginaw's flour built one of the most important bands in American music, even if the microphone sat down in Fort Worth. In 1931 the Burrus Mill and Elevator Company, the outfit whose flagship plant now defines Saginaw, put three out-of-work musicians on the radio to sell Light Crust Flour. Fiddler Bob Wills, guitarist Herman Arnspiger, and singer Milton Brown called themselves the Light Crust Doughboys, opening each show on KFJZ, and soon WBAP, with the line that became a Texas catchphrase: the Light Crust Doughboys are on the air. The mill's sales boss, W. Lee Pappy O'Daniel, hated their hillbilly sound at first and canceled the show, only to bring it back when housewives who bought the flour demanded it. From that sponsored fiddle band came Western swing itself: Wills left in 1933 to form the Texas Playboys, and O'Daniel rode the band's fame into the governor's office in 1939. A later lineup still performs, billed as the longest-running band of its kind. It all started with a Burrus flour sack. (Source: Handbook of Texas; Light Crust Doughboys oral history.)

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Fort Worth Stock Yards Company

1893

The Fort Worth Stock Yards Company was created in 1893, when Boston capitalist Greenlief W. Simpson led a group of investors in purchasing the Fort Worth Union Stock Yards. Under Simpson's leadership, the Company earned the support of the Texas Cattle Raisers Association and lured the prominent meatpacking companies of Armour and Swift to open plants here. Publicity through the Company's market newspaper and annual Fat Stock Show, both begun in 1896, resulted in a significant increase in the number of animals brought to market. The Stock Yards Co. built the area's livestock-related facilities and had controlling interest in many North Fort Worth businesses and properties. The first five decades of the 20th Century were the most successful for the Fort Worth Stock Yards Co. During World War I, foreign governments purchased draft animals, making Fort Worth the largest horse and mule market in the world. In 1917, overall livestock market receipts reached 3,500,000 and in 1944, sales exceeded 5,000,000 head of livestock. However, by the 1950s, local auctions were drawing sellers away from this central market. Today the Fort Worth Stock Yards Co. continues as a significant part of the city's unique heritage. Texas Sesquicentennial 1836-1986.

Historical Marker → · 4.9 mi away

Meacham Field

1925

On July 3, 1925, the Fort Worth city council approved a lease on 100 acres of property on Decatur Road for the city’s new municipal airport. It was built to replace the city’s first municipal airport at Barron Field, a World War I-era flying training field near Everman. After passage of the Air Mail Act (Kelly Act) in 1925, airlines began flying the mail over Contract Air Mail (CAM) routes. As headquarters of the 11th district of the U.S. Post Office Railway Mail Service, Fort Worth offered an ideal location to tie together ground and air distribution. On May 12, 1926, National Air Transport Co. (later United Airlines) flew the field’s first air mail flight to Chicago. On July 16, 1927, the airport’s name changed to Meacham Field, in honor of former Mayor H. C. Meacham. Soon several airlines began to offer passenger service on the CAM routes. By 1931, the airport had expanded to 280 acres. On April 4, 1937, Meacham Field’s new Art Moderne Terminal (the first air-conditioned passenger terminal in the U.S.) and control tower were dedicated. During World War II, in April 1943, American Airlines was awarded a contract to train U. S. Navy pilots at the airport on the Douglas R4D (DC-3) transport. In May 1943, the navy commissioned the airport as a naval auxiliary air facility and established a ferry service unit to coordinate cross-country fighter and torpedo bomber deliveries to the pacific and seaplane ferrying services at nearby Lake Worth. When Fort Worth International Airport opened in April 1953, commercial airline operations moved there. Afterward, Meacham Field Developed into one of the world's leading airports for general and corporate aviation, flight training and aircraft repair.

Historical Marker → · 3.8 mi away

Niles City

1902

Incorporated in 1911, the City of Niles was called the "Richest Little Town in the World" because of its size and the number of large businesses located here. Included in the townsite, which eventually covered 1.5 square miles, were major meat packing firms, the Fort Worth Stockyards, two grain elevators, a cotton seed oil company, and a petroleum refinery and pipeline plant. By the early 1920s the town's taxable property was valued at $30,000,000. Niles was named for Louville Veranus Niles (1839-1928), a successful Boston businessman who first visited Fort Worth in 1893. His reorganization of the Fort Worth Packing Company in 1899 led the firms of Swift and Armour to locate their plants in this area in 1902, rapidly increasing nearby business development. Substantial muncipal tax revenues helped make the city of Niles a progressive community. Under the supervision of a Mayor and five Aldermen, funds were used for improvements in roads, utilities,and city services. The two school districts which served the town also benefited from the large tax base. Despite legal efforts beginning in 1921 to remain incorporated and avoid annexation, the City of Niles became part of Fort Worth in 1923. (1981)

Historical Marker → · 4.9 mi away

Saginaw, TX

1882

Saginaw is a commercial and residential city on State Highway 496 ten miles northwest of Fort Worth in north central Tarrant County. The area was settled before the Civil War and the small agricultural settlement that developed there was called Dido. In the 1880s three rail lines built through the area: the Chicago, Rock Island and Gulf; the Gulf, Colorado and Santa Fe; and the Fort Worth and Denver City. In 1882 the growing community was renamed Saginaw, for the Michigan hometown of J. J. Green, a local landowner. A post office opened there in 1888, and the community school enrolled thirty students during the 1896–97 term. Forty-three pupils were registered ten years later, when two teachers were employed. By 1926, the earliest year for which Saginaw population figures were available, the town had 103 residents. It continued to report this population through the next decade, and in 1936 it had eleven businesses. Also around 1936 the Burrus Mill and Elevator Company and the Globe Aircraft Company located in Saginaw. At that time the Burrus facility was the largest grain elevator in Texas and the second largest in the nation. Its first manager was W. Lee O'Daniel , later governor of Texas and a United States senator. By the 1950s Saginaw had become a residential suburb of Fort Worth. Saginaw had incorporated by the late 1950s, when it had a population of 561 and twenty-five businesses. By the late 1960s it reported 1,200 residents, and by 1976 it reported 3,450 residents and thirty-seven businesses. In 1990 Saginaw had a population of 8,551. The population was 12,374 in 2000.

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Blue Mound, TX (Denton County)

1876

Blue Mound, a scattered rural community on Interstate Highway 35 six miles northwest of Denton in Denton County, was founded by German-speaking people in the last quarter of the nineteenth century. The site was originally called Indian Mound but was renamed Blue Mound for the local blue prairie flowers. In 1876 Herman Christian Barthold, Sr., and his family traveled by covered wagon from Springfield, Illinois, to begin the settlement. Later, many more Germans journeyed through the Midwest to Blue Mound, while still others immigrated to the community directly from Germany, most of them through the agency of John B. Schmitz . Community residents established a school, a German Baptist church, and a German Methodist church. In the early 1900s a Lutheran church in nearby Krum also served Blue Mound residents. Blue Mound's Methodist church, which conducted worship services in German until 1938, has survived since the 1890s. The Blue Mound community furnished the native limestone for the outer walls of the Denton County Courthouse, constructed in 1896. Although in the 1980s perhaps three-fourths of the residents in the Blue Mound area were descendants of the original German community, only limited aspects of German culture survived there. During the 1980s the former school building was still used as a community center.

Tsha Handbook →

Billy Bob's Texas

1981

Billed as the "World's Largest Honky-Tonk" and located in the historic Fort Worth Stockyards district, Billy Bob's Texas, which comprises a total interior space of 100,000 square feet, along with twenty acres for parking, is one of the most popular tourist attractions in the state. Many of the brightest stars in country music have played on its stage. In addition to nightly musical performances, Billy Bob offers live bull riding, dancing, drinking, games, and more to a capacity crowd of 6,000. Billy Bob's has been nominated numerous times and, as of 2011, had won eight titles as the country music "Club of the Year" by the Academy of Country Music. The Country Music Association also has recognized the nightclub with the "Club of the Year" title three times. Billy Bob's Texas was the brainchild of Texas A&M University graduate and professional football player Billy Bob Barnett. Joining Barnett in the venture was nightclub owner Spencer Taylor, a former car salesman. The two chose an abandoned 100,000-square-foot department store that had once been an open-air cattle barn in the Fort Worth Stockyards. The original structure was built in 1910 and underwent several transformations through the years. Additional animal stalls and an auction ring were constructed in 1936, and during World War II the Globe Aircraft Corporation used the building as an airplane factory. With the additional help of investment partners Thomas and Mitt Lloyd, Barnett renovated the facility and opened the doors for business on April 1, 1981. Following on the heels of the early 1980s Urban Cowboy craze and subsequent country music boom, Billy Bob's Texas was an instant hit. The first week featured Larry Gatlin and the Gatlin Brothers , Waylon Jennings , Janie Fricke, and Willie Nelson. A host of others followed, including rockers ZZ Top and the Beach Boys and country music legends Marty Robbins and Ernest Tubb . Billy Bob's Texas helped foster many new musical acts. As the club's marketing director, Pam Minick, wrote, "Billy Bob's became the place for country music musicians to hone their skills, build a fan following, and possibly secure a recording contract." George Strait, for example, played first as an opening act at Billy Bob's. Rick Treviño placed in a talent contest at the nightclub. Ty Herndon was a member of the house band, Southern Thunder. However, problems eventually beset the nightclub. In the late 1980s, country music, Billy Bob's biggest draw, declined in popularity. Financial mismanagement and unrealized projects drained the nightclub. Billy Bob's Texas was bankrupt, and on January 8, 1988, it closed, causing great loss to the tourism industry of Fort Worth, especially the Stockyards district. Soon afterward, however, entrepreneur Holt Hickman, a Fort Worth native, sought to revive the Stockyards. Hickman's long-time friend and businessman Steve Murrin encouraged him to reopen Billy Bob's Texas. Hickman and Murrin, along with Donald K. Jury, an original Billy Bob's Texas investor, reopened the place on November 28, 1988. In February 1989, Billy Minick became a partner and manager of the nightclub. He eventually became CEO, with his wife Pam as head of marketing. When Billy Bob's Texas reopened, new headliners took the stage, including Garth Brooks, Tim McGraw, and Texans LeAnn Rimes and Clint Black. As country music regained popularity, Billy Bob's focused on native talent, especially musicians who had crossover appeal. Such Texas acts as Robert Earl Keen and Pat Green became some of the club's biggest draws. The high-energy environment and close setting of Billy Bob's Texas allowed these performers to interact more with their fans. According to Pam Minick, most stars know they have made it when they have played the main stage at Billy Bob's. The club has a Handprint Wall of Fame that displays impressions of every performer who has played onstage. Many artists have recorded live at Billy Bob's. Among the first to do so were Chris LeDoux and D

Tsha Handbook → · 5.5 mi away

Things to Do in Saginaw

quirky 12.5 mi away
Chewbacca's Grave — May the 4th

May the 4th be with you — and with the Wookiee. Peter Mayhew the seven-foot-three British actor who brought Chewbacca to life in every Star Wars film from 1977…
historical 5.1 mi away
Billy Bob's Texas

Billy Bob's opened in 1981 in an old cattle barn in the Fort Worth Stockyards and at one hundred twenty-seven thousand square feet it is the largest honky-tonk…
historical 5.1 mi away
Fort Worth Stockyards

Daily cattle drives down the street. Honky-tonks and rodeos in the old West.
food 6.5 mi away
Joe T. Garcia's

Joe T opened his little family restaurant behind the packing plant in the Fort Worth Stockyards in 1935. There was no menu. His wife Jessie served whatever she…
historical 10.9 mi away
WWII Marine Glider Base at Eagle Mountain

In 1942 the United States Marines bought 2931 acres of ranchland on Eagle Mountain Lake for a purpose that sounds almost unbelievable now — training pilots to…
quirky 10.9 mi away
The Azle Earthquake Swarm

Starting in November 2013 the ground beneath Azle started shaking and it did not stop for 84 days. Twenty-seven earthquakes rattled windows cracked foundations…
quirky 12.6 mi away
Chewbacca's Grave

The seven-foot-three British actor who played Chewbacca in every Star Wars film from 1977 to The Force Awakens is buried right here at Azleland Memorial Park.…
quirky 19.3 mi away
Springtown Dinosaur Tracks

A family went out hunting arrowheads along Walnut Creek in 2017 and found something about 110 million years older than they expected. Pressed into the creekbed…

Sports in Saginaw

⭐ HOMETOWN LEGENDS Class 5A · Football

Saginaw Trojans — Saginaw — a college & pro athletic pipeline

4 alumni who reached major-college or pro sports

Saginaw High School, a Class 5A institution, has a proud history of athletes who have gone on to achieve at major college and professional levels. These former Rough Riders have represented Saginaw across various sports, showcasing the talent nurtured within our community. Their journeys from high school sports to higher levels of competition provide inspiration for current and future generations of Saginaw athletes.

Among the notable alumni are Terry McDaniel, a former Tennessee and NFL football player, and Calvin O'Neal, also a former Michigan and NFL football player. In basketball, Paul Dawkins became the first NBA player from Saginaw with the Utah Jazz, and also played internationally with Galatasaray in Turkey. Baseball saw Archie Yelle reach the major leagues as a player with the Detroit Tigers, further highlighting the diverse athletic achievements of Saginaw High School graduates.

Pro/D1 alumni
4
Class
5A
Founded
1865
Key Players
  • Terry McDaniel — , former Tennessee and NFL football player
  • Calvin O'Neal — , former Michigan and NFL football player.
  • Paul Dawkins — , first NBA player from Saginaw [Utah Jazz], and international basketball player [Turkey-G
  • Archie Yelle — , Major league baseball player with the Detroit Tigers.
The moment

Paul Dawkins played as an NBA player for the Utah Jazz.

Sources: Wikipedia · SI High School (ScoreBook Live)

Everything Near Saginaw

1412 stories, landmarks & places within ~20 miles — the nearest 200 are listed here — the same local lore RoadyGoat plays as you drive through.

Explore Saginaw on the Map
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