Back when I was just a young tyke, Mom and other Forney ladies bought most of their groceries from Forney grocers, such as Pippins, Venner, Boles (grocery stores), Ford, Thomas (service stations). Many of them also made monthly trips to Terrell to shop at the larger Safeway Grocery Store. Then I never thought about how Terrell became a town and why it was larger than Forney. So, let’s look at a little history of our neighbor!
The 1872 coming of the Texas and Pacific Railroad was instrumental to Terrell’s growth, just as it was for Brooklyn/Forney. Three “landowner” names stand out in early growth for our neighbor to the east: C. C. Nash, John G. Moore, and Robert A. Terrell, because they came together to, as I was told, give about 100 acres of “their land” to “Texas and Pacific” if the “bosses” would construct a train depot in Terrell where these “land-dealers” specified– in hopes that they could convince prospective commercial and home developers/ builders to buy land and locate in Terrell.
From what I can tell, Forney’s incorporation date of 1873 beat Terrell’s by two years, but around the early ‘80s, our neighbors had more than 2000 citizens.
Terrell had begun to grow with schools and churches by the mid-‘70s and were fortunate enough to attract some new citizens, who had money and “pull.” One was Oscar B. Colquitt, who courted “fame and fortune” by bringing in early Terrell newspapers and the First National Bank.....and by later serving as Governor of Texas during the first de-cade of the 1900s. A second was Mrs. Hetty Green’s son, Col. E. H. R. Green. It just so happened that Mrs. Green was a Midland Railroad owner and thought to be the world’s richest woman at that time.
Terrell also was the Legislature’s choice for the location of the state’s soon-to-be newest “mental health asylum,” which became the largest facility of that use west of the “Mississippi” and also the largest employing unit of the Terrell Community! By the beginning of WWII, reports had Terrell with a citizenship of more than 10,000 folks!
As we close today, I share from Dan Lautz. “CHOCOLATE and voices in my mind: One says to ‘Eat the Chocolate.’ The other says: ‘You heard her–eat the Chocolate!’” Thanks for reading. I am going out for CARAMELLO! (Themer)
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