Tioga, Texas

Everything Tioga is known for

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Rivers & Roads in Song near Tioga

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

Interstate 35 27 songs Red River 50 songs

History of Tioga

Primitive Baptist Church of Tioga

1884

Organized 1884, in Lone Star; moved to Tioga, 1893. Present church built, 1948. T. N. Cutler, first pastor. Sam Rayburn, Speaker, U. S. House of Representatives was baptized here 1956, by H. G. Ball, Elder. Ball conducted Rayburn's funeral in Bonham, 1961. Four presidents attended.

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Autry, Orvon Gene

1907

Gene Autry, the movie star known as the "Singing Cowboy," was born Orvon Gene Autry in Tioga, Texas, on September 29, 1907. He was the first child of cattle rancher Delbert Autry. A few years after his birth, the family moved to Ravia, Oklahoma. At age five Gene began singing in the church choir where his grandfather was a minister. At age twelve he received his first guitar lessons from his mother on a guitar ordered through the Sears and Roebuck catalog. As a young man Autry was hired as a telegraph operator for the Frisco Railroad in Chelsea, Oklahoma. One evening in 1927, during Autry's shift, Will Rogers overheard the young telegraph operator singing and playing guitar. Rogers was so impressed that he suggested Autry move to New York and try to find work on radio . Autry heeded Rogers's advice but was unable to establish a successful radio career and soon returned to Oklahoma. Autry was billed as the "Oklahoma Yodeling Cowboy" on Tulsa radio station KVOO. In 1929 he signed his first record deal and returned to New York. Two years later he recorded his first hit, "That Silver-Haired Daddy of Mine," which eventually sold a million copies. The recording set an industry record for sales and became part of the first album in history to go gold (500,000 units sold). The next year Autry married Ina Spivey, a schoolteacher from Oklahoma. In 1934 he began his Hollywood career as a singing cowboy in the Western movie In Old Santa Fe , starring Ken Maynard. The following year Autry played the lead in another Western named after his hit song "Tumbling Tumbleweeds." By 1942 he had established a successful career in recording, touring, and moviemaking. All of these projects were put on hold, however, when he enlisted in the Army Air Corps during World War II . Autry returned in 1946 to his singing and acting career. He also began to invest some of his new-found fortune in television, radio, real estate, and other ventures. In addition, he formed his own publishing company in order to retain the rights to all of his songs. As the popularity of B Westerns declined, Autry broke new ground as the first film actor ever to become a major television star. In 1949 he recorded "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer," which became the first record in history to go platinum (1 million units sold). In 1960 he expanded his financial empire further by purchasing the Los Angeles Angels (later the California and then the Anaheim Angels) baseball franchise. Autry was inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame in 1969. In 1978 he published his autobiography, Back in the Saddle Again . In 1981 following the death of his first wife, Autry married Jackie Ellam. Together they helped cofound the Museum of the American West in Los Angeles. The facility has since, through the merger of three interconnected institutions, become the Autry National Center of the American West. In 1995 he sold 25 percent of his baseball franchise to the Disney Corporation. At the time of his death on October 3, 1998, in Los Angeles, he had earned an unprecedented five stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. That same year he was inducted into the Texas Country Music Hall of Fame . His numerous honors include induction into the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame, the National Cowboy Hall of Fame, and the National Association of Broadcasters Hall of Fame. ASCAP honored him with a lifetime achievement award. Gene Autry's birthplace of Tioga, Texas, held its first annual Gene Autry Music Festival on September 29, 2001, and continued the event for several years. In 2011 he was inducted into the Angels Hall of Fame as that baseball team's first owner.

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Tioga, TX

1881

Tioga, twenty miles southwest of Sherman on U.S. Highway 377 in the southwest corner of Grayson County, was founded in 1881 when the Texas and Pacific Railway reached the site. The crew used water from the local well and named the site Tioga, a New York Indian word said to mean "swift current" or "fair and beautiful." When mail service began in 1881, Dr. J. S. Nichols, a physician and druggist, became the first postmaster. In 1884 the community had two churches, a school, a cotton gin, a grocery, a general store, a pharmacist, a carpenter, a blacksmith, and a population of sixty. By 1892 the town also supported a military academy, a gin and gristmill, a physician, and a restaurant. The population was 600. The town was incorporated in 1896. In 1884 Matt Rains, a blacksmith, discovered medicinal qualities in the local water; after he bathed a burned hand, the hand reportedly healed quickly. As a result in the 1880s several companies-Tioga Mineral Wells Company, Radium Mineral Water, Tioga Mineral Water Company, Atlas Water, and Star Well-marketed the mineral water and attracted health seekers to Tioga. It was said that ten trainloads of visitors came to Tioga each day. In 1925 the population reached a peak of 777. In 1937 there was an unsuccessful effort to change the name of the town to Autry Springs, after Gene Autry, who was born in Tioga and graduated from Tioga High School in 1925. The first local newspaper, the Tioga North Texan (1895–98) was subsequently published as the Tioga Tribune (1899–1904) and thereafter as the Tioga Herald . In 1955 it ceased publication. In 1940 Tioga had a population of 638, a post office, and sixteen businesses. In 1947 one of the bathhouses was destroyed by fire, and the wells were temporarily shut down. However, a new proprietor built new bathhouses and continued to boost the town as a health resort. The resort business, however, declined. In the 1970s Jim and Deedie Wendover attempted to revive the town and bottle its water. They renovated old storefronts and started an antique trading center. Wendover also sold many of the town's commercial structures in a 1982 auction. In 1989 Tioga had a restaurant, a leather store, several convenience stores, and six churches. Many residents commuted to nearby cities to work. The Primitive Baptist Church has a historical marker which tells of the baptism (1956) and funeral (1961) of Samuel T. (Sam) Rayburn . The population of Tioga in 1980 was 380. In 1990 the town had 525 residents and six businesses. The population was 754 in 2000 with thirty-three businesses.

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Van Zandt, Olan Rogers

1920

Olan Rogers Van Zandt, lawyer and Texas state legislator, was born on March 19, 1890, in Tioga, Texas, to John Henry Van Zandt and Nancy Jane “Nannie” (Rogers) Van Zandt. He grew up in a large family and would live until the age of ninety-five despite suffering a pair of childhood accidents that left him blind. When he was a boy, a projectile fired from a slingshot put his eye out. Young Van Zandt later lost the sight in his other eye due to a freak accident when a stick broke off into his eye while he was driving cattle. Despite these injuries Olan continued with his education. His father, a Methodist school teacher for the Mt. Zion School located east of Tioga, sent him to the Texas School for the Blind where his hard work and solid grades earned him admission to the University of Texas Law School. At UT, Van Zandt relied on his classmates for assistance in his education. None of the textbooks had been converted to Braille—thus his friends gathered and read legal books, codes, and statutes to him. Despite this barrier to his education, he prospered. Van Zandt graduated with honors and established a law in office Tioga in the 1920s before running for his first political office. Van Zandt married Beatrice Murrell Burnam on September 9, 1920. They had four children. Van Zandt ran for state office as a Democrat for a seat in the House of the Fortieth Texas Legislature. He won and was sworn in on January 11, 1927. Even though this was his first political office, he stayed busy and served on a variety of committees including the Judiciary and Foreign Relations committees. He won reelection in the next three contests and chaired the Judicial Districts Committee and Judicial Redistricting Committee in the Forty-second legislature. In 1935 he successfully ran for the Texas Senate for District 9 (Cooke, Fannin, and Grayson counties). During his first term, he chaired the Privileges and Elections Committee, vice chaired the Judicial Districts Committee, and sat on more than a dozen other committees. He won reelection to the Texas State Senate in 1939, and during the Forty-fifth Texas Legislature he continued his demanding work load by staying active on more than a dozen committees. He also served as president pro tempore. He served as a state senator in the Forty-sixth and Forty-seventh legislatures until January 12, 1943. After his legislative service, Van Zandt contested the Grayson county attorney’s office. He won and served a single term; he lost a second bid. After two decades of successful government service, Van Zandt returned to practice law in the private sector. During World War II , while Van Zandt’s blindness restricted him from service in the military, his children took up the call. His daughter Claire served in the WAVES (United States Navy), while his only son Rogers saw action in Belgium and Germany with the 740th Tank Battalion. His son-in-law (husband to his eldest daughter Murrell) was killed in the South Pacific Theater. As had been his custom, Van Zandt did not let barriers restrict his success or drive. Even while blind, he could freely move about Tioga and endured the playful antics of local children attempting to fool the aging lawyer by moving items around in stores he frequented. To their surprise, Van Zandt was able to discern the location and items they had mockingly misplaced and give them a stern warning to “move that out of the way before someone gets hurt.” He eventually moved his practice to Sherman, Texas, where he practiced law well into his late seventies. He was a member of the State Bar Association , Grayson County Bar Association, and was a Methodist. Olan Van Zandt passed away on December 10, 1985, at an assisted living home in Gunter, Texas. He was survived by two daughters (Murrell and Elizabeth), eleven grandchildren, and fifteen great-grandchildren. He was laid to rest in Tioga Cemetery in Tioga, Texas.

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Tioga Cemetery

1881

In November 1881, settlers established the community of Tioga on the eastern edge of the East Cross Timbers, and it incorporated as a city in 1906. For the first decades of Tioga's history, resident buried their loved ones on private land in family cemeteries. In February 1906, W.R. and Sally J. Gillespie deeded five acres of their farmland to the local Woodmen of the World camp for use as a burial ground; the first grave dates to that year. Many of the early headstones are Woodmen of the World markers. The community continued using and improving the cemetery over the years, adding a pavilion in 1924 for funeral services. Today, the burial ground is a tie to generations of Tioga area residents, and is the final resting place for veterans of military conflicts dating to the Civil War, including both Union and Confederate soldiers. Other notable persons interred here are Texas Senator Olin R. Van Zandt and the Rev. H.G. Ball, a Primitive Baptist preacher who presided over the funeral service for U.S. Speaker of the House Sam Rayburn. An association maintains the burial ground for future generations. Historic Texas Cemetery - 2004

Historical Marker →

St. Thomas Aquinas Catholic Church

1891

St. Thomas Aquinas Catholic Church has provided for the spiritual needs of residents in this region since the late nineteenth century. Before that time, Catholics in the town of Pilot Point, organized in 1854, had no nearby place of worship. Early area Catholics, many of whom were of German origin, had to travel two days to attend services in Gainesville or Sherman. By the 1890s, the firm of Flusche Brothers and Sullivan recruited a number of German settlers to the town, increasing the need for a Catholic Church. Sixty-three residents and visitors gathered in 1891 for the first Mass given in the town. By 1892, parishioners raised funds to build a structure, and the Diocese of Dallas consecrated St. Thomas Aquinas Church on March 7, the feast day of St. Thomas. The following year, the church opened a school and secured land for a cemetery. In 1904, members built a larger sanctuary. The parish prospered until the economic depression of the 1930s. In 1936, however, the church once again began to grow under the leadership of Father Paul Charcut (1908-1968), who was actively involved in both church and civic affairs in Pilot Point. In the following years, St. Thomas Aquinas Church established significant programs to assist the less fortunate in the area through charitable contributions. Congregation members have also served as civic leaders, while others have entered into religious vocations or participated in the U.S. military during wartime. Today, the church continues in its historic role as a spiritual and community leader for the surrounding area. (2007)

Historical Marker → · 4.7 mi away

Things to Do in Tioga

quirky 21.2 mi away
Goatman's Bridge

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

Sports in Tioga

🏆 STATE CHAMPIONS Class 1A · Volleyball · 2016

Tioga — 2016 UIL 1A Volleyball State Champions

Most recent: 2016 1A

Tioga School, a Class 1A powerhouse in Texas volleyball, has established a proud tradition on the court. The Tioga Bulldogs have claimed one UIL state championship, a significant achievement for any program. Their dedicated work and competitive spirit have brought state-level recognition to their community.

The Bulldogs' championship season stands as a high point in Tioga sports. This accomplishment reflects the consistent effort and skill developed within the school's volleyball program. The community takes pride in the success of its student-athletes and the statewide acknowledgment they've earned.

State titles
2016
Most recent
2016
Class
1A
The moment

The Tioga Bulldogs secured a Class 1A state title in 2016.

Sources: UIL State Championship Archives

Everything Near Tioga

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

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