CLINE
THE CLINE - BASS - FRANKLIN HOUSE
Historical marker application. Application rejected.
...The land on which this house was built was a gift to Eliza Cline and her husband, Joe; a gift from Eliza’s father J. E. Largent. The deed file in the County Clerk’s office states that for the sum of one dollar, they were given deed to Lot 1, Block 5 of the new Tucker Addition.
Even before Eliza and Joe acquired the lot, it was a part of a very historic area in McKinney, made famous by that great horseman, Jack Tucker. He owned a lot of land in the area and used it to raise fine horses, often staging horse races there. In fact, much [is] written about [a] pre-Civil war horse race that was run on a stretch of land where Tucker Street now is.
Here it was that just about every man in two counties gathered in 1859 to watch the great Monmouth beat the little race horse, Steel Dust, from Lancaster. But when the race was over, Steel Dust won, and most local men “lost their shirt”. Jack Tucker built the finest stables in North Texas, one of which he used as a stage coach stand where they drivers could change horses, as they had to do every 20 miles. Another famous McKinney man, Capt. John Bingham, rode on top one of these stages with rifle in hand to protect the stage.
Research in the County Clerk’s office showed that Joe and Eliza Cline entered into a contract with J. A. Forsythe in which he agreed to build a house for them on their new lot, using plans drawn up by John Martin, an architect who designed many of the fine homes built here in the 1890s and later....
The Clines lived in the house from 1894 to 1902 when they sold it to the J. D. Bass family. The Clines moved on to Melissa where he operated a Mercantile store for 40 years.
J. D. Bass was a cotton buyer and broker at the time when cotton was the most lucrative business in the county. Great fortunes were made during this time not only in McKinney, but in the entire blackland strip.
Lou Clark Bass, wife of J. D., was the granddaughter of Addison Randolph Clark, who earlier had established a Christian College at Thorpe Springs. He named it for himself, Ad-Ran College. The school fell upon hard times and a good friend, T. E. Sherley, closed his store in Melissa and for one year he went all over Texas raising funds for the school and selling people on its importance. The school was saved, prospered, then was moved to Ft. Worth where it became the Texas Christian University. The J. D. Bass family was a branch of the Phillips family who went with William Penn to Pennsylvania in 1755 to settle the land. In all the Bass family lived in this house for 60 years. After the death of the parents, the house was home of their daughter, Mary, and her husband, Ula Saunders.
....In 1913 a Bass daughter returned home to give birth to her first child. Unfortunately the same day the baby was born, a great tragedy happened downtown on the square. In the midst of a busy shopping day, the three story Odd Fellow’s Building that housed the Mississippi Store, suddenly fell killing 8 persons and injuring 14 more. All that night every man in town who could, dug through the rubble trying to find the injured or dead. All the doctors in town ere at the scene all night ministering to the hurt, therefore at the time of the baby’s birth no doctor could be found. The young mother died giving birth and the son was reared by the Bass family. ...
Historical marker application. Application rejected.
...The land on which this house was built was a gift to Eliza Cline and her husband, Joe; a gift from Eliza’s father J. E. Largent. The deed file in the County Clerk’s office states that for the sum of one dollar, they were given deed to Lot 1, Block 5 of the new Tucker Addition.
Even before Eliza and Joe acquired the lot, it was a part of a very historic area in McKinney, made famous by that great horseman, Jack Tucker. He owned a lot of land in the area and used it to raise fine horses, often staging horse races there. In fact, much [is] written about [a] pre-Civil war horse race that was run on a stretch of land where Tucker Street now is.
Here it was that just about every man in two counties gathered in 1859 to watch the great Monmouth beat the little race horse, Steel Dust, from Lancaster. But when the race was over, Steel Dust won, and most local men “lost their shirt”. Jack Tucker built the finest stables in North Texas, one of which he used as a stage coach stand where they drivers could change horses, as they had to do every 20 miles. Another famous McKinney man, Capt. John Bingham, rode on top one of these stages with rifle in hand to protect the stage.
Research in the County Clerk’s office showed that Joe and Eliza Cline entered into a contract with J. A. Forsythe in which he agreed to build a house for them on their new lot, using plans drawn up by John Martin, an architect who designed many of the fine homes built here in the 1890s and later....
The Clines lived in the house from 1894 to 1902 when they sold it to the J. D. Bass family. The Clines moved on to Melissa where he operated a Mercantile store for 40 years.
J. D. Bass was a cotton buyer and broker at the time when cotton was the most lucrative business in the county. Great fortunes were made during this time not only in McKinney, but in the entire blackland strip.
Lou Clark Bass, wife of J. D., was the granddaughter of Addison Randolph Clark, who earlier had established a Christian College at Thorpe Springs. He named it for himself, Ad-Ran College. The school fell upon hard times and a good friend, T. E. Sherley, closed his store in Melissa and for one year he went all over Texas raising funds for the school and selling people on its importance. The school was saved, prospered, then was moved to Ft. Worth where it became the Texas Christian University. The J. D. Bass family was a branch of the Phillips family who went with William Penn to Pennsylvania in 1755 to settle the land. In all the Bass family lived in this house for 60 years. After the death of the parents, the house was home of their daughter, Mary, and her husband, Ula Saunders.
....In 1913 a Bass daughter returned home to give birth to her first child. Unfortunately the same day the baby was born, a great tragedy happened downtown on the square. In the midst of a busy shopping day, the three story Odd Fellow’s Building that housed the Mississippi Store, suddenly fell killing 8 persons and injuring 14 more. All that night every man in town who could, dug through the rubble trying to find the injured or dead. All the doctors in town ere at the scene all night ministering to the hurt, therefore at the time of the baby’s birth no doctor could be found. The young mother died giving birth and the son was reared by the Bass family. ...
