Sanger, Texas

Everything Sanger is known for

1 song mention this city 1 artist from here

Music in Sanger

Songs About Sanger

the interstate 35 waltz
garret t. capps & justin boyd
10%

Artists From Sanger

J
Jason Kyle Wickens
country

Rivers & Roads in Song near Sanger

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

Interstate 35 43 songs Red River 87 songs Texas State Highway 199 8 songs Trinity River 11 songs Missouri–Kansas–Texas Railroad 3 songs

Musical Heritage

The Sanger Girl Who Wrote the Long Black Veil RoadyGoat

One of the most-covered songs in American music was written by a woman who grew up right here in Sanger. Marijohn Wilkin, born in 1920, was raised in Sanger by a father who worked as a baker and played fiddle on the side, and that mix of small-town music and church singing followed her to Nashville. There she co-wrote The Long Black Veil, the haunted ballad of a man hanged for a crime he won't explain to save a married woman's honor; Lefty Frizzell cut it in 1959, and it's since been recorded by Johnny Cash, The Band, and dozens more. She also co-wrote Cut Across Shorty for Eddie Cochran and I Just Don't Understand, which the Beatles later covered. In 1973 she wrote One Day at a Time with a young protege named Kris Kristofferson; it became one of the biggest gospel songs of the decade. Wilkin was inducted into the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame in 1975. Not bad for a baker's daughter from a Denton County railroad town. (Source: Wikipedia; Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame.)

RoadyGoat →

History of Sanger

Eleanor Roosevelt Caught the Midnight Train Here RoadyGoat

On the night of November 1, 1939, a crowd gathered at Sanger's little Santa Fe depot to see the First Lady. Eleanor Roosevelt had just dedicated the Little Chapel in the Woods over in Denton, but the Gulf, Colorado and Santa Fe line didn't run through Denton, so she came to Sanger to catch the midnight train. The town had no street lights, so the platform was dark when she arrived. A high school home economics teacher, Martha Graves, was there with several students, and Mrs. Roosevelt stopped to ask what the girls were learning. Home canning, the teacher said. Mrs. Roosevelt replied that she'd just put up 32 quarts of green beans from the garden at Hyde Park. Then station agent Fred Scheu climbed the signal pole, blew out the lantern, and called Sanger, all clear, and the First Lady's train pulled out into the night. She thanked Scheu by name the next day in her syndicated newspaper column, My Day. (Source: Denton County historical marker; Denton Record-Chronicle.)

RoadyGoat →

The Town That Got Three Names Before It Kept One RoadyGoat

The exit you're taking off Interstate 35 sits on top of a railroad water stop. In 1886 the Gulf, Colorado and Santa Fe was racing to lay track from Fort Worth toward Indian Territory, and steam engines needed water along the way. Surveyors picked a spot at milepost 392.16, close to good water and close to the old Chisholm Trail, and a town sprang up around the stop. At first folks called it Huling, after Elizabeth Huling, the widow who sold the railroad the land. Then they tried New Bolivar, because the older settlement of Bolivar sat just to the west. Neither stuck. Texas already had a place named Huling, so in 1887 the Santa Fe officially named the town Sanger, honoring the Sanger Brothers, the Dallas dry-goods merchants whose stores followed the rails across the state. The town never had a Sanger living in it. It was named the way railroads named a lot of Texas stops: for a good customer whose freight kept the line profitable. (Source: Handbook of Texas; Denton County historical marker.)

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Where the Rail Met the Trail RoadyGoat

Before there was a town here, there were cattle. The Chisholm Trail ran just west of this spot, and the ranches of north Denton County drove their herds north toward Kansas every season. When the Santa Fe built its water stop in 1886, the railroad quickly added a side track, a loading chute, cattle pens, and a one-room depot at the foot of Bolivar Street, and the cowboys stopped driving all the way to Kansas. They loaded the cattle here instead. Through-rail service to Kansas City opened in 1887, and the Santa Fe even gave the cowboys a free round-trip ticket to ride along with their herd. For decades, ranchers pushed cattle right down Sanger's dusty streets toward the pens. One station agent's daughter remembered mothers yanking laundry off the line and herding children indoors as the thundering herd rolled through into the 1930s. When the cattle business shifted to the Fort Worth stockyards, dairy cream shipped by rail kept Sanger's farmers afloat through the Depression. (Source: Denton County historical marker; Handbook of Texas.)

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Sanger and the Gulf, Colorado and Santa Fe Railway

1886

Sanger originated in 1886 at mile post 392.16 as a water stop along the Gulf, Colorado and Santa Fe Railway Route leading north from Fort Worth to Purcell, Indian territory (now Oklahoma). The stop’s proximity to north Denton county cattle ranches and to the Chisholm Trail led the railroad to construct a side track, cattle pens, loading chute and depot. Mrs. Elizabeth Bullock Huling, who had sold the property for the railroad stop, soon hired surveyors to plat a townsite surrounding it. Mrs. Huling donated land for a wagon yard, well, school, town square, cemetery and methodist church. A saloon, blacksmith shop and the ready hotel, which housed the first post office, opened shortly after. The town, originally known as Huling, and later New Bolivar, was officially named in honor of Sanger Brothers, a prominent Texas dry goods firm. The town was incorporated in 1892. When an 1890 fire destroyed much of sanger, the railroad rebuilt expanded facilities. The 1897 establishment of the Sanger Mill and elevator company, home of silk finish flour, helped to transition Sanger to a farming community. Cattle continued to drive the economy until two meat packing plants were built in Fort Worth ca. 1900, and ranchers began trucking cattle to market. World War II increased rail traffic at the depot and operations were taken over by women as men went to war. Although passenger rail service later ended, the town of Sanger, which got its start as a railroad water stop, continues to grow and prosper.

Historical Marker →

Bolivar, Townsite of

1852

Named indirectly for Simon Bolivar, South American statesman, general and patriot. It might have been called "New Prospect," but for a mug of rum. When town was founded in 1852, a man who had settled here from Bolivar, Tenn., wanted to name the community in honor of his hometown. But a preacher-doctor insisted that it be named New Prospect. An election was called to settle the matter and the Tennessean exchanged mugs of rum for votes, Bolivar won. During the 1800s, Bolivar was the westernmost fort in Denton County and the first settlement west of Collin County. Two stagecoach lines changed horses here. The town thrived and could count three hotels, several stores, a gin, a flour mill, a sawmill, a blacksmith shop, a saloon, a church and a school. It was here that the Texas cattle trail joined the Jesse Chisholm Trail, but it was John Chisum, Texas cattle baron, who had herds here and furnished beef to the Confederacy during the Civil War. Bolivar and the surrounding area were havens for Sam Bass and his men. Two Bolivar men were jailed in 1890 for harboring notorious marauders. Many early settlers (whose descendants still live here) played important roles in development of county.

Historical Marker → · 4.1 mi away

Elsasser, Jacob Frederick

1871

Born in Germany in 1834, Jacob Frederick Elsasser migrated to this country with his father and brothers. They operated a cigar factory in Chicago until it was destroyed in the great Chicago fire of 1871. Elsasser moved to Texas with his Swiss-born wife, Catharine (1832-1903), and built a 2-story farm house east of Sanger. After it burned, they erected this residence in 1901. One of Elsasser's daughters, Mrs. J. M. Peery, and her family occupied the house until 1939. It was purchased in 1952 by Mr. and Mrs. Willard Bounds. (1976)

Historical Marker →

Sanger, TX

1886

Sanger, on Interstate Highway 35 ten miles north of Denton in north central Denton County, was founded in 1886 as a stop on the Santa Fe Railroad. Cattle from the ranches of north Denton County had been driven up the old cattle trails through the site of Sanger to northern markets. The cattle industry of the prairies of north Denton County contributed to the founding of the town, and wheat-growing contributed substantially to its economy. Sanger was named by the Santa Fe in honor of one of its customers, the Sanger family, who owned stores in Waco and Dallas ( see SANGER, ALEXANDER ). The town was laid out on land owned by Mrs. Elizabeth Huling. Lots were sold. The F. M. Ready family, the first to settle in Sanger, came in October 1887, the same year as the first engine and caboose. Sanger was originally dependent on the railroad as a link to markets. Following the decline of the original line, the building of a state highway that connected Sanger and Dallas helped compensate for the declining rail business. The road was begun in 1919 and reached Sanger in 1920. The black, waxy soil of the area grows wheat, oats, maize, millet, and cotton. Cattle and other livestock are raised around Sanger, and there are several horse farms for the breeding and training of registered stock. In the 1980s Sanger had ten churches and forty-eight businesses. Its utilities were municipally owned except for the gas and telephone companies. The town had a community center, two parks, a public library, and a weekly newspaper. Lake Ray Roberts is four miles to the east. The population in 1980 was 2,574, an increase of 60.6 percent since 1970. This rapid growth resulted from the town's proximity to Denton. Bank equipment, plastic molding, paper products, fertilizer spreaders, sheet metal, toilet compartments, and cabinets are manufactured in Sanger. In 1990 the population was 3,508. The population grew to 4,534 in 2000.

Tsha Handbook →

Krum, TX

1884

Krum is on Farm Road 1173 seven miles northwest of Denton in west central Denton County. The Gulf, Colorado and Santa Fe Railway ran a line through western Denton County in the mid-1880s. At that time the company bought 200 acres, platted a townsite, and named the community for railroad official Charles K. Krum. The community reported a population of seventy-five in 1892, and by 1900 it was thriving, with a number of businesses, four churches, and a school. In 1900 the railroad shipped at least half a million bushels of wheat, prompting the claim that Krum was the "largest inland grain market in the world." In 1905 the Flour Mill and Elevator Company and three other elevator companies were operating at the community. The mill burned in 1915, and changing storage and marketing practices eventually closed the remaining elevators. Krum's growth and prosperity continued until about 1925, when its population reached 750. The community declined as cars and trucks began carrying trade to larger markets and as young people departed for college or city jobs. With the Great Depression years the town's population level dropped below 300, then stayed low in the post- World War II period, ranging between 300 and 400 until the 1970s, when the sprawl of the Dallas-Fort Worth metropolitan area northward brought suburban homeseekers in increasing numbers. Access from Krum to Interstate Highway 35 made commuting to city jobs convenient, and the community's population rose to 605 by 1978, to 917 by 1982, and to 1,542 by 1990. In 2000 the population was 1,979. That figure had increased to 4,157 in 2010.

Tsha Handbook → · 7.4 mi away

Valley View, TX (Cooke County)

1924

Valley View is on Spring Creek at the intersection of Interstate Highway 35, Farm Road 922, and the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway ten miles south of Gainesville in southern Cooke County. The site of the community was first settled in 1870 by the Lee family. L. W. Lee plotted a town on his land in 1872, naming it Valley View, presumably for the view offered at the site of Spring Creek valley. Eighteen families moved in, and a post office opened in the community that same year. A blacksmith shop was opened in 1873, and the shop was used for the community's first school. By 1884 the town had an estimated 250 inhabitants, three steam gristmills and cotton gins, and three general stores and shipped cotton, livestock, and wheat. The Gulf, Colorado and Santa Fe Railway reached the town in 1886. Valley View had four churches and a hotel by 1890, and the Valley View school district was incorporated in 1902. In 1903 the town witnessed dramatic growth with the completion of a two-story brick school house and six brick business buildings, the arrival of telephone service, and the opening of a bank. The following year the Valley View News began publishing weekly. The community had an estimated population of 600 by 1914. Two fires struck the town in 1924. In the fall the east side of the town square was burned down. On the morning of December 19 bank robbers started a second fire as they robbed the First National Bank of $5,000. A further two city blocks were destroyed. Valley View's population was estimated at 700 from the 1920s through the mid-1960s. In 1970 it was 805, but the town declined during the next decade. When Valley View incorporated in 1980, it had 514 inhabitants and six businesses. The town began to grow again in the 1980s and had a population of 640 in 1990. In 2000 the population was 737.

Tsha Handbook → · 7.9 mi away

Things to Do in Sanger

quirky 11.4 mi away
Goatman's Bridge

A 1884 iron bridge outside Denton haunted by the ghost of a murdered goat farmer.

Everything Near Sanger

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

Explore Sanger on the Map
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