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Welcome to Texas Genealogy Trails!
*Volunteers dedicated to putting free data online.*
This Cooke County Website is available for adoption.
If interested in joining our group, view our Volunteer Information Page and contact Kim.
[Basic webpage design knowledge and a desire to transcribe data is required]
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We regret that we cannot perform personal research for
anyone
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| Cooke County was established by an act of the Texas legislature on March 20, 1848, and
named for William G. Cooke, a hero of the Texas Revolution. The boundaries of the original county encompassed its
present area, along with territory that became Montague, Clay, Wise, and Jack counties. |
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Cooke County assumed its present boundaries in 1857. It was
crossed by several early trails, including the Mormon Trail, a branch of the Chisholm Trail, and the Butterfield
Overland Mail route. Settlements in the northern extension of the Peters colony reached the southeastern edge of
the county by the late 1840s. Fort Fitzhugh was established in 1847 to protect area settlements against Indian
raids, the last of which occurred in the western part of the county in January 1868.
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Col. William F. Fitzhugh, commander at the fort, proposed that the town be named for
his former commander, Gen. Edmund Pendleton Gaines. Gainesville, founded in 1850, has been the county seat since
the organization of the county. The southern and eastern parts of the county were settled by people primarily from
Tennessee, Arkansas, and Missouri. The western part had only scattered settlements prior to the late nineteenth
century, when German land speculators founded the towns of Muenster in 1889 and Lindsay in 1891.
The Denison and Pacific Railway reached Gainesville on November 7, 1879, from the east; it later became the Missouri,
Kansas and Texas (Katy) Railroad. The Gulf, Colorado and Santa Fe connected Gainesville and Denton on January 2,
1887, on its way to meet the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe at Purcell, Indian Territory. These links provided for
the first time a north-south rail line from Chicago to Galveston. The Katy was later extended west toward Wichita
Falls. |
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Cities and Towns
| Bulcher (unincorporated) |
Moss Lake (unincorporated) |
| Burns City (unincorporated) |
Muenster |
| Callisburg |
Myra (unincorporated) |
| Dexter |
Oak Ridge |
| Era (unincorporated) |
Pioneer Valley (privately managed, unincorporated) |
| Gainesville |
Prairie Point (unincorporated) |
| Hood (unincorporated) |
Rosston (unincorporated) |
| Lake Kiowa (privately managed, unincorporated) |
Sivells Bend (unincorporated) |
| Leo (unincorporated) |
Valley View |
| Lindsay |
Walnut Bend (unincorporated) |
| Lois (unincorporated) |
Whitesboro (mostly in Grayson County) |
| Marysville (unincorporated) |
Woodbine (unincorporated) |
| Mountain Springs (unincorporated) |
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ONLINE DATA
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Mockingbird
State Bird
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