Free land attracted many colonists to Texas in 1840s

419 Pages·2014·8.74 MB·English

by  Todd Fisher

Between the Creeks”
“

Gwen Pettit
This is a compilation of weekly newspaper columns on local history written by
Gwen Pettit during 1986-1992 for the Allen Leader and the Allen American in Allen,
Texas. Most of these articles were initially written and published, then run again later
with changes and additions made. I compiled these articles from the Allen American on
microfilm at the Allen Public Library and from the Allen Leader newspapers provided by
Mike Williams. Then, I typed them into the computer and indexed them in 2006-07.
Lois Curtis and then Rick Mann, Managing Editor of the Allen American gave
permission for them to be reprinted on April 30, 2007, [email protected]. Please,
contact me to obtain a free copy on a CD. I have given a copy of this to the Allen Public
Library, the Harrington Library in Plano, the McKinney Library, the Allen Independent
School District and the Lovejoy School District. Tom Keener of the Allen Heritage
Guild has better copies of all these photographs and is currently working on an Allen
history book. Keener offices at the Allen Public Library.
Gwen was a longtime Allen resident with an avid interest in this area’s history.
Some of her sources were: Pioneering in North Texas by Capt. Roy and Helen Hall, The
History of Collin County by Stambaugh & Stambaugh, The Brown Papers by George
Pearis Brown, The Peters Colony of Texas by Seymour V. Conner, Collin County census
& tax records and verbal history from local long-time residents of the county. She does
not document all of her sources.
Although Gwen has an excellent reputation for accuracy, care should be taken to
use these news articles as a starting point for research and not as a primary definitive
source. I copied the articles exactly as written only changing obvious typing errors. Not
as obvious errors with dates and names are probably present. Some of the microfilm is
illegible but I decided to include those articles “as is” rather than to delete the entire
article. Also, some of our history changes slightly as more research is done and more
archaeology projects are undertaken. A few articles on the Allen Station Dam written by
Lindy Fisher are included at the back of this book as well as including “The Ballad of
Sam Bass”. Gwen Pettit’s husband is named D.C. Pettit and is mentioned often in the
early articles. Compiled by: Lindy Fisher
831 Timberwood Lane
Fairview, Texas 75069

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Table of Contents
Foreword Cattle Trails
i
Table of Contents Cattleman settled in Allen 51
ii
Brands showed owner of cattle 52
Photos & Sketches
v
Cook home a landmark 53
Poems
v Preston Road integral to area 55
Land & Prairie Cowboys often were boys 57
Lebanon had reputation 58
A home where the buffalo roamed 1
Cattle herded on Shawnee Trail 60
Settlers granted land in Texas 2
Lebanon hit hard times 62
Free land brought first settlers 3
Dinosaur fossils found in creek 5 Republic of Texas – Collin
Free land attracted newcomers 7 McKinney, Throckmorton,
Free land attracted many in 1840s 8 Buckner County Seat, Centennial
Immigrants settled this area 10
The Hedgecoxe War 65
Taproot 11
Old ‘new’ Texans 66
Tall grass prairie covered area 11
Fourth of July of 1846 67
Hogwash about bluebonnets 13
The first Fourth of July 69
Lessons deepen appreciation 15
Troops from the new state 70
Texas in party dress of flowers 16
The Mexican War–the beginning 71
Shotgun put food on table 18
The Ranger continues 72
Collectors preserve old seeds 19
Pioneer signed State Declaration 74
Forgotten potherbs 21
Remember Collin McKinney 76
Roses grown in pioneer days 22
McKinney, signer of Declaration 77
Surveyors depended on landmarks 23
Collin McKinney, shapes of counties 79
Odd assortment colonized area 24
City’s namesake helps annex Texas 80
Early settlers had more land 26
Allen, memorial to Republic 82
Young turkey herder 27
James Throckmorton 83
Local dialect’s terms give clues 29
Only cemetery of first county seat 84
Is it spring yet? 30
Buckner, County seat 86
Good wells hard to come by 32
Texas Centennial 87
Springs an integral part of history 33
Sesquincentennial 89
Old-timers say dowsing a talent 34
Lyndon Baines Johnson
Indians
L B J fostered Texas image 91
Recorded Indian sites plentiful 37
Rowlett schoolmaster marries student 92
Indians turned hostile 38
Senator Gough dedicated service 93
Massacre victims buried on creek 40
G.W. Baines led Baptists 95
Indian attacks claimed settlers 41
Baines’ interest in law 96
Indians assist early adventurers 43
LBJ promoted heritage 97
Indians protected hunting grounds 44
Churches
Comanches resisted growth 45
Railroad led to 1st Baptist Church 100
Taking the land 46
Uncle Abe; true type of gentleman 101
Fisher family settlers troubled 47
Neighbors worshipped in school 103
Army protected Preston Road 49
Gough part of history of Baptists 105

Gone to Texas 106
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Churches established by Phillips 107 Tracing Allen’s roots 168
Church key in black community 109 Once mighty Bois d’Arc 169
Old Rowlett Church 111 Pioneer homes, Part I 170
Fun at Baptist Church 112 Pioneer homes, Part II 172
First Christian Church 114 Mrs. Brown would have home 173
News in 1908 114 Tracing ancestry clouded 174
Itinerant preachers traveled 116 Quality of slave records varies 176
Baptist church at Rowlett 117 Texans use initials in names 178
Methodist minister 119 Laymen were salt of earth 179
Schools Allen Cemetery 180
Local legends (partial article) 182
School lunches 122
Memories of old barbershops 184
Early schools 122
Gold Fever 186
200 years of good intentions 123
Men lured by gold 187
Students dodged longhorns 124
Lee-Peacock feud rages 188
Education system had start 125
Local, national politics in 1890 190
Community to keep district 127
Many traveled from Kentucky 191
“By the skin of our teeth” 128
Parker without Southfork 192
Remembering the early schools 129
Allen, steady growth in 1880 194
Remains of early schools 131
Newspaper records growth 196
Remembering Hog Waller School 133
Some blarney about potatoes 198
Disparity- white and black schools 134
Epitaphs 199
Mrs. J.L. Lovejoy- life to education 137
Civil War
Which creeks? 138
Lick Springs, Forest Grove 139 Throckmorton against secession 200
Residents of Bethany were 141 Throckmorton supports Confed. 202
Early Texas schools difficult 143 Confederates find forts abandoned 203
Stinson School 144 Missouri connection strong 204
Willow Springs School 146 Younger family settles here 205
Eagles in 6-man footbal1 147 Quantrill in North Texas 206
Early AHS basketball 149 Quantrill’s marauders 207
More about the Mudhole 150 Quantrill arrested by military 208
Sam Bass Missourians brought changes 210
Local families feed Quantrill 211
State’s 1st train robbery in 1878 152
Local posses helpful 212
Wild rumors proceeded train 153
Local citizens aided outlaws 214
Intense manhunt 154
Texas northers bring 216
Allen train robber’s dream 156
The Blue Norther poem 216
Bass assembled gang 157
Early 1900s
Bass found train robbing 159
Chasing Bass’ gang serious 160 1900 Sears catalog used by settlers 218
Texas Ranger kills Bass 161 Robberies explosion in 1901 219
Jackson survived shootout 163 Few traces of early newspapers 220
Ballad of Sam Bass 164 Old newspapers show early Allen 221
Late 1800s Roosevelt made visit in 1904 223
Mules were big business 224
Life tough for early settlers 166
Include black-eyed peas Jan. 1 225
The Saturday Bath 167
Children’s games teach lessons 227
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The Fire of 1915 228 Ol’ days weren’t so good in cold 291
Downtown fire in 1915 229 Harvest reason for Thanksgiving 293
Downtown location has history 230 Founding Families
Allen’s oldest downtown building 232
Ashby recalls life in England 295
Water a primary concern 234
Baccus home 296
Biblical references in town plan 235
Dr. Rowlett; doctor, lawyer, planter 298
Depression generation 236
Rowlett earns certificate 299
Sight, smells of summers past 238
Physician settled near Rowlett 301
People spend Sunday afternoons 239
Morgan Brown family 302
Worst-tasting folk medicines 241
Helping former residents job 303
Some food for thought on diets 242
Details give clues of house 304
Jackrabbit makes for tales 243
Dr. Compton brought medicine 306
Telegrams brought bad news 245
Lonesome Dove character local 307
Interurban links urban areas 246
Journal details move from Ky. 309
Interurban railway was vital 247
Pioneer’s journal records arrival 310
Interurban had cosmopolitan air 249
Lunsford records trip 312
Interurban station part of history 250
Diaries record of household duties 314
Liberty Bell tour 251
Warden settlers 315
Interurban stops after 40 years 252
Some weddings were important 317
Families gathered for canning 255
Hogan Witt settled on Rowlett 318
Home demonstration clubs teach 256
McMillen-Maxwell group left mark 320
Mom’s college education 257
Coffey descendents still among us 321
Permanent press 259
201-year-old Document leads to Va 323
Rodeos past 260
Christies followed migration route 324
Patriotic songs lift spirits 261
Land for boys brought family 325
1942 262
Marion Snider – our own celebrity 327
Allen was island in flood of 1964 264
Seasoned pioneers from Illinois 328
And the floods came 265
Rattan, Illinois pioneer, settles area 329
The rains came down 266
Huffmans brought aristocracy 331
Pettits were welcomed 267
Physician settled near Rowlett 332
Hymn written here will be sung 269
Dugger family migrated from Tenn. 333
Humphrey’s grocery store 270
Dugger tells stories of life 334
Farm implement firm booms 271
Fondren family came to area 336
Visionaries in 1950s 273
Wash Ford made pioneer history 337
Missed turnoff leads doctor here 274
Early Roads
Holiday Stories
Henry Exall Memorial Highway 340
Churches celebrated Christmas 278
The Old Stage Road 341
“Christmas gift” greeting 279
Tracing Forest Grove Road 342
Column has covered much in year 280
Early roads followed lines 343
Stories reported in 1991 282
Stuck in the mud 345
Christmas special for Spurgins 283
Stagecoaches stopped on Jupiter Rd. 346
Country Christmases of past 284
Because of traffic, I stay home 348
Tidying up for a new beginning 286
Early Lucas
Time to offer holiday gifts 287
Lucas church destroyed in 1904 350
Dreams of white Christmas 288
Fitzhugh name brings pride 351
Christmas toys introduced 290
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Spring’s flow remains constant 353 Dr. Rowlett 1848 map 3
Past of Captain William Fitzhugh 354 William & Dycie Perrin 5
Fitzhugh Mills 355 Map of geologic formations 6
Cornbread was family staple 356 Preston Road map 55
Spring at Fitzhugh Mills 357 Lebanon map 1884 59
Fitzhugh sought military 359 Shawnee Trail map 61
Fort Fitzhugh near Gainesville 360 J.W. Baines & Ruth Huffman 93
Fort Fitzhugh 362 Hog Waller School 131
Locating Lazy Neck 363 Lick Springs school 139
Spurgins trace roots 365 Lick Springs school 140
Culleokans fled Civil War 366 AHS girls basketball 1911 150
English immigrants relocate 368 Allen Barbershop 185
Little remains of Winningkoff 369 Allen street scene sketch 231
Early Fairview Allen water well building 1915 235
Allen town plat 1876 236
Dairyman’s nickname sticks 370
Interurban in 1948 250
Fairview’s Baptist Church 372
Interurban in McKinney 1908 254
Bush Road was well-traveled 373
Wetsel Home Demonstration Club 257
Watering place attracted Indians 375
A.A. Humphreys grocery 1906 271
Wetsel family contributed to history 376
Allen downtown sketch 281
Wetsel family flourished 378
Baccus Home 297
Wetsel marriage combined cultures 380
Dr. John Huffman 301
Wetsel family reunions 381
Taylor grocery in Winningkoff 370
Wetsel key player in chase of Bass 383
Wetsel land grants map 377
William Wetsel recorded war 385
Wetsel reunion 1913 382
Goodman’s historic has mystic 387
Women’s photo 1920s 400
Act of avengement, Jim Reed 388
Allen Station Dam & Tom Keener 404
Reed wrecks havoc 390
Allen Station Section House 406
Reed’s criminal days are over 391
Water Tower & Antha Whisenant 408
Family ties link with Confed. 393
Allen Station Dam & Kelly Fisher 410
Some weddings were “leaps” 394
Huffman, John, Jr., 414
Myths abound, Belle Star’s life 395
Poems
Clannish, unsociable Shirleys 397
Civil War border problems 398 The Shawnee Trail 62
Murray Family 399 Ballad of Sam Bass 164
Gathering for women’s photo 400 The Blue Norther 216
H&TC Railroad A Lament for Streaky Gravy 242
The Nail-scarred Hand Hymn 269
The coming of the rails 402

The ol’ swimming hole 403
Allen Station dam 404 Other articles
Allen Station section house 406
How Allen Station Dam was built 408
How Allen Station Dam was built 407
Texas settlers displaced 410
Photos & Sketches
The Mexican War 412

Gwendyn Pettit photo i Rebekah Baines marries 413

v
LAND & PRAIRIE

A Home where the buffalo roamed
Nov. 17, 1985
At the corner of Federal and Boyd, with the traffic of Central Expressway roaring
by in the foreground, one can view the western panorama and feel a kinship with the
Indians of 150 years ago. Large earth moving equipment plows a rolling farmland laying
out streets and pipelines, changing a way of life, much as the first plows changed the
virgin prairies.
On these expansive tall grass prairies grew Bluestem, Indian grass, Sideoats
Gramma, reaching up to six feet and the shorter Buffalo Grass. Dense woods of elm,
hackberry, bois d’arc and pecan grew along the creeks and branches. A few clumps of
trees were scattered over the blackland prairie.
Lucy Jane Phillips Epps, eight years old when her family moved here in 1851
said, “The whole prairie was covered with the prettiest flowers in the world and we did
not need flowerbeds. They were everywhere.”
There is general agreement that the Indians regularly burned the prairie in the Pre-
Columbian times. Some experts even believe that the prairie as we know it is manmade,
and always has been, pointing out that the firing of grassland is a universal custom among
aborgional people.
Accidental grass fires, though, have always been a danger here. At the little
settlement on Farmers Branch in Dallas County, a lady, new to Texas, built a fire under
her washpot. The fire swept away across the prairies on a south wind, not stopping until
it reached the Red River.
Buffalo, deer, and pronghorn antelope roamed over these prairies, also, herds of
feral mustang horses and longhorn cattle.
John T. Dugger, who went to the old Enloe School, said they drank from a cow
horn or a buffalo horn, both of which made nice drinking cups when worked over and
polished. He said that plenty of these horns were on the prairie in the early days of
settlement. Some men got to be experts at polishing them.
The great herds of buffalo (American Bison) were thinned out in the early 1800s
by white buffalo hunters wanting only the hides. The bufallo were driven south, but this
was still a hunting ground for the western Indians when the first settlers arrived.
R.B. Whisenant told of hunting black bear in Bubble Bee Grove. These woods were
located between Rowlett and Cottonwood Creeks now where Jupiter Road crosses
Rowlett. It was densely covered with trees and underbrush. One had to cut a way
through it. Jake Helms, Will Perrin, and Wash Ford hunted with hounds in the grove.
R.W. Carpenter first visited Texas in the spring of 1852. His friends, the
Harringtons, his wife’s brothers, the Mathews, and other Kentuckians who had migrated
earlier had written back to Kentucky praising this country highly. He told his grand-
children later of his ride up Spring Creek toward the log cabin of Alfred Harrington,
After the eroded clay hills of Kentucky, he thought it the most beautiful country he had
ever seen.
As far as the eye could see were miles and miles of waving grass, that even in the
early spring reached the stirrups of his saddle. Wild water fowl rose out of the water-
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filled buffalo wallows by the thousands. He saw prairie chicken and quail, and once a
glimpse of antelope or deer, on this four mile ride to the home of his friend. Here was a
land such as few had ever seen!

Settlers granted land in North Texas
2-19-89
Although we do not rival the Oklahoma Sooners, we did have our own little land
rush. Fannin County residents had held Republic of Texas land certificates for several
years, but had been prevented from locating their land by Indian hostility. There were
more people moving into North Texas from the states wanting land. With the removal of
eastern Indians, the door was opened to settle the land on the forks of the Trinity. Later,
other settlers would find that the door had also been opened to the western Indians, who
had been kept behind the barrier of the Cross Timbers by the presence of the eastern
tribes. In 1841, the time had come to move away from the stockaded towns near the Red
River.
Hunting parties to the upper Trinity had reported that this region had rich, black
soil with large timbered creeks - water and wood were necessities for pioneer life. In
spite of the threat of floods, the choice land was along the creeks where there was rich
dark clay, classified as the Trinity soil series. It is doubtful that the first settlers realized
the value of the Houston black soil on the upland prairies as farmland. Daniel Rowlett
described his land as about one-third arable, the balance in pasture land; however, the
Bowman and Brown families later prospered cultivating the land in Rowlett’s survey.
There was probably not much erosion while the prairie was covered with native grass
with few places where bare white rock was exposed. An old-timer, the Hon. E.W.
Kirkpatrick, in 1915 said, “Before the advent of the plow, the streams in the country ran
bold and swift over beautiful stone and gravel beds.” The land along these streams was
the first taken.
The big land giveaway was supervised by the Fannin County Board of Land
commissioners. The importance of this board, who had millions of acres of land at their
disposal, was such that they were elected by a joint session of both houses of Congress,
as was the county surveyor, Daniel Montague. In 1841, the members of the land board
were Daniel Rowlett, John Jouitt, John Simpson and James S. Baker, about whom Rex
Wallace Strickland in “History of Fannin County” commented: “It is fair to say that they
were among the more substantial citizens of the frontier community, and that there is
nothing to show that their work was other than satisfactory.”
In November 1841, Dr. Rowlett, Jabez Fitzgerald, Edmund Dodd, Pleasant
Wilson, Dr. William E. Throckmorton and others set out from the settlements on the Red
River to explore the land on the Trinity. Dr. Throckmorton, the father of James W.
Throckmorton who was later governor of Texas, had come from northwest Arkansas to
take up land in Texas. According to an often-repeated story, Throckmorton selected a
site for a settlement and returned to the Red River for his family. When he returned, he
found that Dr. Rowlett had taken up the land he had chosen during his absence. Pleasant
Wilson, for whom Wilson Creek was named, guided the Throckmorton party to a large
spring near present Melissa. There Throckmorton established the first permanent
settlement in Collin County.
Whatever the reason for the misunderstanding, Rowlett, as a deputy surveyor
under Montague, had been going about his business, locating land for Fannin County
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men, most of whom had long-standing rights to land, and for himself. Montague’s
records show that a large party of men was tramping through the grassland and woods
along Rowlett’s Creek, as the creek was then known, during that winter. Men who
carried the chain to measure the land were James Ledbetter, Edmund Dodd, Maise Foster,
G.W. Kennedy, A. Hatfield and Harmon Wynn. Ledbetter, Dodd and Foster located their
land farther south on the creek, even past the Dallas County line. Some of the land that
Rowlett and these chainmen surveyed was 640 acres for Jeremiah Muncy and 320 acres
for McBain Jameson.
Most of the older land certificates were in Spanish measure, such as the league
and labor of land given to residents of Texas on the day of independence. The huge L
shape of Rowlett’s survey contained 15,935,561 square varas, over 2,800 acres of land.
Daniel Rowlett – doctor, lawyer, surveyor, planter – never lived on this land. He died in
1848 and was buried at Fort Inglish.

Dr. Daniel Rowlett, a member of the Fannin County Land Commission, marked off land claims along
Rowlett Creek in January 1948.

Free land brought first settlers to Allen
9-13-87
How did the mythical typical Texan evolve? Are Texans really brasher, larger
than life, with free-wheeling self-reliance; ready to gamble all on an oil well or a cause;
and without enough sense to know when to cry, “calf-rope?” Perhaps closer to the truth,
a Texan is a product of his environment, heritage and personal ambitions. This is the first
of a series about the local families who were the heritage of one Texan.
“Land for the boys,” was the most powerful motivation for the settlement of the
America’s frontier. Its importance was such that political thinkers wondered if our form
of democracy could survive once there was no more land for expansion.
Early Texans realized that Texas’ land was its most important asset. With it they
would bargain for schools, railroads and even a capital building. Land would bring in
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settlers who would make the small republic stronger, settlers who would be a buffer
between the older settlements and the Indians. After those who were in Texas the day of
independence were given a league and a labor of land and bounty grants were given to
the soldiers of the Texas Revolution, settlement had not moved much beyond the early
eastern settlements. Several offers for free land were made for special situations, but
Texas had fully intended to sell its land to settlers. By 1840, Congress realized that more
land would have to be given away to increase immigration.
Congress adopted a plan presented by a group headed by W.S. Peters of
Louisville, Ky. to settle colonists on specific land in 1841. Colonists who were heads of
households (including widows with children) received one section (640) acres) of land.
Single men received 320 acres. These grants were known as headlights (the right of one
individual to receive land).
Before the immigration company could advertise, the news swept across
Kentucky by word of mouth. Families with grown sons who needed land began to make
plans to move to the Texas frontier.
Land for the boys was a primary reason for William and Dice Perrin to leave
Logan County, Ky. to come to Texas around 1844-45. Over two thousand acres now in
Allen’s city limits once belonged to members of this family. William Perrin’s headright
reaches from McDermott to beyond Bethany, generally between the expressway and Hwy
5, and included the land around City Hall. West of the expressway was the land of their
widowed daughter, Catherine Bryan. The sons’ portions are now parts of Allen and
North Plano. In addition, William Perrin also acquired the Muncey survey and other
land, a total of 2,980 acres.
Although the Perrins had a wealth of land, an inventory of their cabin, taken after
William and Dycie died in the mid-1850s, shows only the bare essentials for pioneer
living, such as a featherbed, two straw beds, and utensils for fireplace cooking. Their one
mare and colt was valued at more than all the household items.
Another reason for the Perrins to leave Kentucky could have been to find mates
for their ten children. William and Dycie were first cousins. Their parents were Charles
Perrin and Catherine Jameson, and George Kerby and Helen Jameson. Both mothers
were the daughters of Thomas Jameson and Hannah Taggart. (We do not know if they
were related to the McBain James who was killed by Indians.) Intermarriages were
common in clannish pioneer communities, but the dangers of continuing into further
generations were recognized.
Catherine Bryan married her neighbor, James W. Parsons. George married Mary
Ann Finley and Charles married Mourning Finley. Ann Eliza, who would marry four
times, first married Thomas Phillips, the son of a Baptist minister from Tennessee.
William Jr. married Amanda Grant and his sister, Amanda Dycie, married a young school
teacher from Kentucky, Henry Clay Thomas, James S. married Delia E. Roland and
Ellen, who had married David Granville Thomas in Kentucky, later followed her family
here.
Mary Elizabeth Perrin, described as a comely and industrious woman, small in
stature, with black eyes and hair, married a young doctor from Kentucky, Dr. John Smith
Huffman. Most of the Perrin children moved on to more western counties in Texas.
However, Mary Elizabeth raised her family here. She lived ninety years, the last years at
Merkel, Texas with a daughter. She was an omnivorous reader and a good
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conversationalist until her death in 1916. We will follow her line through several
generations.

William and Dycie Perrin were early settlers in the area that is now Allen. This picture appeared
in a Kentucky newspaper just before they moved to Texas in 1844-45.
Dinosaur fossils found in area creek beds
1-15-89
“What about dinosaurs? Were there any dinosaurs here?” I had told a first-grade
class about cowboys, Indians and buffalo, and had emphasized that history happened
right here in Allen, Texas. I should have anticipated these questions, because kids this
age are fascinated by dinosaurs. I recalled my own questions, when as a child I found
seashells, some with a glimmer of pearl, high on a white rock hill. How could a shell be
a rock? Why was it here, so far from the ocean? I have been told that once long ago,
these hills were an ocean floor. If there were dinosaurs here, they were the swimming
kind.
According to geologists, the continents moved around the globe, bumping into
each other before finding their present places. About 300 million years ago, give or take
a few million, the North American continent was rear-ended by South America, and the
sea bottom was scrunched up against our shore. Water still covered this crumpled ocean
floor when more mud, sand and rocks settled on top of it. Then another hard slam shoved
the whole mess to the northwest. We know the results as the Ouachita Mountains of
Arkansas and southeastern Oklahoma. However, the Ouachitas begin in the east, in
Mississippi, cross Arkansas, into Oklahoma, then somewhere between Durant and Atoka,
turn south into Texas. The mountains pass right under Collin County and Allen, continue
across Central Texas to the Big Bend area. When this mountain building was over, an
ocean covered our area. About 3,000 feet of dirt settled to the bottom of the sea covering
the mountains, so we can’t feel the bumps under us.
Sand Shale, Limestone and marl are stacked in layers beneath us. Around 1894,
geologist R.T. Hill found places where most of these formations surfaced to the west and
north of here, and named them for those locations: Eagle Ford, Woodbine, Main Street
(Denison), Paw Paw (Creek), etc. Each formation has distinctive key fossils of marine
animals tat are clues to the time it was formed.
Deep down are the water-saturated Trinity sands. Artesian wells from these sands
provided water for Allen and other towns before Lake Lavon and other reservoirs were
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