Gainesville

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Gainesville, Texas
—  City  —
Gainesville in 1883
Location of Gainesville, Texas
Coordinates: 33°37′49″N 97°8′25″W / 33.63028°N 97.14028°W / 33.63028; -97.14028
Country	United States
State	Texas
County	Cooke
Area
- Total	17.0 sq mi (44.1 km2)
- Land	17.0 sq mi (44.0 km2)
- Water	0.0 sq mi (0.1 km2)
Elevation	751 ft (229 m)
Population (2000)
- Total	15,538
- Density	914.1/sq mi (352.9/km2)
Time zone	Central (CST) (UTC-6)
- Summer (DST)	CDT (UTC-5)
ZIP codes	76240-76241
Area code(s)	940
FIPS code	48-27984[1]
GNIS feature ID	1373791[2]

Gainesville is a city in and the county seat of Cooke County, Texas, United States.^[3] The population was 15,538 at the 2000 census.

Demographics

As of the census^[1] of 2000, there were 15,538 people, 5,969 households, and 4,005 families residing in the city. The population density was 914.1 people per square mile (352.9/km²). There were 6,423 housing units at an average density of 377.9/sq mi (145.9/km²). The racial makeup of the city was 80.77% White, 6.00% African American, 1.33% Native American, 0.55% Asian, 0.02% Pacific Islander, 9.09% from other races, and 2.23% from two or more races. Hispanic or Latino of any race were 17.47% of the population.

There were 5,969 households out of which 33.2% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 49.2% were married couples living together, 13.9% had a female householder with no husband present, and 32.9% were non-families. 29.3% of all households were made up of individuals and 14.7% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 2.52 and the average family size was 3.13.

In the city the population was spread out with 27.2% under the age of 18, 10.9% from 18 to 24, 25.8% from 25 to 44, 19.3% from 45 to 64, and 16.8% who were 65 years of age or older. The median age was 34 years. For every 100 females there were 88.0 males. For every 100 females age 18 and over, there were 83.3 males.

The median income for a household in the city was $30,571, and the median income for a family was $37,137. Males had a median income of $30,480 versus $21,459 for females. The per capita income for the city was $15,154. About 17.0% of families and 20.5% of the population were below the poverty line, including 29.5% of those under age 18 and 12.7% of those age 65 or over.

Education

The City of Gainesville is served by the Gainesville Independent School District. Gainesville High School boasts a 15.3 student to teacher ratio^{[citation needed]}. Enrollment figures for the 2005–2006 school year stand at 800 students attending the high school. On the state administered reading proficiency tests, GISD grades 10 and 11 scored substantially lower than the state average^{[citation needed]}. The main campus for North Central Texas College is located on the west side of Gainesville. Gainesville also boasts state championships in High School Football (3A-I 2003) and High School Basketball (3A 2002).

Economy

Gaineville, Texas is often associated by visitors with Thackerville, Oklahoma. Thackerville is home to a WinStar Casino which is expanding. The casino is the largest building in Thackerville, and employees usually reside in Gainesville while visitors stay in the Gainesville Motels. ^[4] This was featured in KTEN News in September 2009. ^[5]

Gainesville is home to a full sized WalMart Supercenter #185 with manager Mike Hart. The store attracts shoppers from Cooke, Love, and Marshall Counties.

Gainesville has several strip malls with many stores, including:

• CiCi's Pizza
• Big Lots
• Family Dollar
• Dollar Tree
• Dollar General
• Sherwin Williams
• Aaron's
• Bealls
• Factory Connection
• Advance America Cash Advance
• Smokehouse II Bar-B-Q, Steaks, Catfish

Other stores that are in independent buildings:

• Wal-Mart Supercenter #185
• Super Plaza
• The Home Depot
• Pizza Inn
• The Cracker Barrel
• Whataburger
• Sonic
• Braum's
• McDonald's
• Shell
• Pizza Hut
• Arby's
• Jack in the Box

Gainesville has a zoo.

Super Plaza is the name to two types of stores which fit two definitions of "Plaza". The first store chain uses the definition as a department store similar to a strip mall. The second store chain uses the definition as the Spanish word. The Super Plaza in Gainesville is the latter mentioned. Its primary language is Spanish and attracts Hispanic and Latino shoppers.

Gainesville is also home to a large outlet mall (The Gainesville Factory Shops) attracting visitors from north Texas as well as southern Oklahoma.

Geography

Gainesville is located at 33°37′49″N 97°8′25″W / 33.63028°N 97.14028°W / 33.63028; -97.14028 (33.630360, -97.140323).^[6]

According to the United States Census Bureau, the city has a total area of 17.0 square miles (44.1 km²), of which, 17.0 square miles (44.0 km²) of it is land and 0.04 square miles (0.1 km²) of it (0.18%) is water.

The town is located at the interchange of two highways, with U.S. Route 82 overpassing Interstate 35. Many businesses are on 82, with a few other exits along 35. It has several 4-lane roads. Part of Highway 82's business area is widened and paved in concrete. It has partial interstate quality with an overpass on some roads and a traffic light on others.

History

Gainesville is home to a courthouse with an octagonal rotunda topped by stained glass, erected in 1910. "The 1912 Cooke County Courthouse was designed by the Dallas firm of Lang & Witchell. The courthouse was designed in the Beaux Arts style with some Prairie Style features and influences from famed Chicago architect Louis Sullivan. The courthouse in the center of Gainesville features black and white marbled interiors and a tall central atrium capped by a stained glass skylight under the tower." The courthouse is undergoing a major renovation project, with many of the city offices moving out to other buildings to make way for the contractors to begin.^[7]

The courthouse grounds feature a towering Confederate soldier memorial, erected in the early 20th century by the United Daughters of the Confederacy (UDC), topped by a Confederate soldier facing northward, and bearing the following poetic inscription honoring Confederate casualties of war:

"God holds the scales of justice;
He will measure praise and blame;
And the South will stand the verdict,
And will stand it without shame.

Oh, home of tears, but let her bear
This blazoned to the end of time;
No nation rose so white and fair,
None fell so free of crime."

Other memorials on the courthouse grounds honor veterans of other U.S. wars.

The presence of these monuments praising the Confederacy is ironic, given that Gainesville was the site of a notorious massacre of Texans by Confederate forces. The Confederacy had promised that Texans would not be drafted to fight the United States outside Texas. When it broke this promise Confederate officials feared that Cooke County, known to be loyal to the United States, would be the site of protests and would possibly secede back to America as several counties in Tennessee already had^{[citation needed]}. It should also be noted that, when Texans voted on secession, Cooke County residents voted against the act.

Confederate soldiers rounded up over 200 Texans, and on October 1, 1862 hanged 42 after a mock trial. This event sparked a reign of terror in which dozens of Texans suspected of being loyal to America were lynched by Confederate soldiers.^[8][9]

Gainesville was once home to Camp Howze, one of the largest infantry replacement training centers during World War II. Only a few remnants now exist of the camp, but now are on private property.

Gainesville is home to Morton Museum, a small museum on a mission to preserve local history.

On one of Germany's biggest commercial television station there is a weekly docu-soap about the Reimann family, which emigrated to Gainesville, Texas, in 2004. They opened a bed and breakfast business at Moss Lake in 2007.

Weather And Climate

Gainesville usually enjoys typically sunny weather similar to the rest of Texas with the exception of a few natural disasters.

On June 18, 2007, thunderstorms moved through Gainesville, resulting in intense flooding. Over 7 inches fell in Gainesville and nearby Sherman. On June 20 around 5:00 A.M., straight lines winds hit and Wichita Falls had winds up to 94 mph. Much of the center of the town was flooded and several lives were lost (including a few children.)

Another flood brought Gainesville into the national spotlight when, on September 21, 1981, the Trinity River flooded much of the town, including the local zoo. The Frank Buck Zoo, named for famed zookeeper Frank Buck, lost more than forty animals that day. The one that garnered the attention and love of the world was Gerry the elephant. Named Gerry II after the zoo's original elephant, Gerry managed to survive the flood, after being swept down river, by hanging on to tree limbs with her trunk for 36 hours. At the worst of the flood, the only part of her body that was not submerged was her trunk. Since the flood Gerry (now known as Sissy) has remained in the spotlight off and on. There was an attempt to breed her at the Fort Worth Zoo in the 1980s, but that didn't work out. In 1997, she crushed a zookeeper against the doorway of her barn enclosure at the Frank Buck zoo. While details around the death are still shrouded in mystery, zoo officials labeled her as a problem animal and shipped her off in the middle of the night to avoid protests from the community that had come to love her over the years. After leaving Gainesville, she was sent to Houston Zoo and then El Paso. She made headlines again when video footage of her arrival at El Paso was leaked to media outlets. The footage showed zookeepers beating Gerry with clubs for over an hour. The zookeepers never really explained why they did what they did to her. Thankfully, Gerry/Sissy was sent to an elephant sanctuary in Tennessee, where she resides at the present time. Gerry turned 40 on Dec. 1, 2008.

Parks, Recreation, and Tourism

Gainesville has a zoo, a historic train station, and a 45 acre fully integrated soccer complex. It has miniature 1/4 size replica steam engine passenger train which was dissassembled and reassembled for viable transportation for 50 passengers for a tour around Leonard Park.

City Parks include:

• BP Douglas Park
• Edison Park
• Forsythe Transportation Skate Park
• Georgia Davis Park
• Heritage Park North
• Heritage Park South
• Home Grown Hero Walking Trail
• Jaycee Park
• Keneteso Park
• Leonard Park
• Moffett Park
• Pecan Creek Park
• Gainesville Tennis Court Area
• Washington Park

Medal of Honor

Gainesville is home to a unique program known as the Medal of Honor Host City. This program is intended to honor true American heroes, by bringing them to Gainesville. This program, which began in 2001 by a group of volunteers acting on the idea proposed by local resident and earner of the Purple Heart, Don Pettigrew, has seen immense growth over an eight year period. On April 4, 2009; Lightning Bear Studios premiered a documentary directed by Javier Sanchez about the Host City program. The documentary is entitled A Hero's Welcome, and it premiered at the State Theatre in Gainesville. Traditionally the MOH Host City Weekend is celebrated the first week in April.

The program has been visited to date by 25 different men awarded with the Congressional Medal of Honor. The list includes John William Finn, Michael Thornton, Donald E. Ballard,James Allen Taylor, John Baca, Bruce P. Crandall, Drew Dennis Dix, John J. McGinty III, David H. McNerney, Robert Emmett O’Malley, Jacklyn H. Lucas, to name a few.

Notable residents

• 1920 Olympics gold medal sprinter Charles Paddock was immortalized in the film Chariots of Fire.
• Aurelian Smith, Jr., aka Jake "The Snake" Roberts of WWE wrestling fame of the 1980s.
• Darcel McBath, Safety for the Denver Broncos
• Paul O'Dell, Diver for the National Park Service Submerged Resources Center and prophetic singer/songwriter
• Lewis C. Rigler, Famed Texas Ranger
• Norman Bennett, Movie Star in Academy Award winning films
• Eric Moore, U.S Army ( Staff Sergeant) Combat Veteran inducted into the Prestigious Order of Samuel Sharpe. Class of 2002, Gainesville High School

Cody Hart, professional bull rider and 1999 PBR world champion

Health System

Gainesville formerly had a hospital called Gainesville Memorial Hosipital. Its replacement is North Texas Medical Center.

Media

Newspapers

Gainesville Daily Register

Radio

KGAF

Television

• Gainesville, TX gets over the air reception from Sherman-Ada which also includes OETA translator out of Ardmore, Oklahoma Amplified outdoor antennas can receive stations from Dallas, Texas.

Transportation

Rail

Gainesville has a historic rail depot. Main Article: Gainesville, Texas (Amtrak station)

Roads And Highways

Major highways are

• U.S. Route 82
• Interstate 35

References

External links

• City
• Chamber
• College
• ISD
• KGAF
• Mall
• Medical Center
• Newspaper
• Zoo

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Gainesville, Texas

• Gainesville, Texas is at coordinates 33°37′49″N 97°08′25″W / 33.63036°N 97.140323°W / 33.63036; -97.140323 (Gainesville, Texas)Coordinates: 33°37′49″N 97°08′25″W / 33.63036°N 97.140323°W / 33.63036; -97.140323 (Gainesville, Texas)

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