Goodner, T. C.
GOODNER, T. C.
Courier-Gazette, 1903
EARLY DAYS IN M’KINNEY
Judge T. C. Goodner Narrates Interesting Reminiscences.
THIRTY SEVEN YEARS AGO
McKinney Then a Village of Only 500 Inhabitants. List of Business Firms Then.
Today a Courier reporter in his rounds met up with Judge T. C. Goodner and finding him in a reminiscent mood, asked him about his recollections of early days in McKinney. Taking a fresh chew of tobacco the Judge said that thirty-seven years ago today, he arrived in McKinney after a six weeks journey over land, in a one horse wagon with a traveling companion, Henry Rutland, from near Nashville, Tennessee. The same journey has since been made by Judge Goodner in thirty hours – by rail. McKinney was then a village of less that five hundred people. Nearly all the business houses were then on the west side of the public square, not one on the south side, but two on the north and only one little confectionary, kept by Uncle Frank Roeminele on the east side and no court house or other buildings on the square. Among the merchants here then were Murray & Boyd, Z. E. Ranney, H. A. McDonald, T. H. Emerson & Co., J. B. & David Stiff, Wm M. Bagley on the west side; I. D. Newsome and A. L. Shirley on the north side; Frank Roeminele on the east side as stated above. Ed Cannon kept the City Hotel, lately torn down by Heard Bros. J. W. Throckmorton was the Governor of Texas. T. J. Brown now on the Supreme Bench, R. DeArmond, J. H. Jenkins, Joseph Bledsoe, Alexander Berry, Geo. T. Armstrong, Judge W. H. Andrews and Judge R. L. Waddill composed the McKinney bar. Drs. B. M. E. Smith, G. A. Foote and G. W. Patterson were the physicians of the town.
The only sidewalk in the town was on the west side of the public square and the only manufacturing plant or mill of any kind was an old inclined wheel ox mill that stood on the Dallas road about ten blocks south of the square near the place where Ballew was hanged in 1872.
All of Short’s addition, Petersburg, Russellville, College Hill, Fairfield were then in farms. From these facts it can readily be seen how McKinney has grown and developed from a village of 500 souls to a solid, up-to-date, beautiful city of 7000 inhabitants possessing more wealth in proportion to population than any city in the United States, outside of Galveston and Hartford.
Courier-Gazette, 1903
EARLY DAYS IN M’KINNEY
Judge T. C. Goodner Narrates Interesting Reminiscences.
THIRTY SEVEN YEARS AGO
McKinney Then a Village of Only 500 Inhabitants. List of Business Firms Then.
Today a Courier reporter in his rounds met up with Judge T. C. Goodner and finding him in a reminiscent mood, asked him about his recollections of early days in McKinney. Taking a fresh chew of tobacco the Judge said that thirty-seven years ago today, he arrived in McKinney after a six weeks journey over land, in a one horse wagon with a traveling companion, Henry Rutland, from near Nashville, Tennessee. The same journey has since been made by Judge Goodner in thirty hours – by rail. McKinney was then a village of less that five hundred people. Nearly all the business houses were then on the west side of the public square, not one on the south side, but two on the north and only one little confectionary, kept by Uncle Frank Roeminele on the east side and no court house or other buildings on the square. Among the merchants here then were Murray & Boyd, Z. E. Ranney, H. A. McDonald, T. H. Emerson & Co., J. B. & David Stiff, Wm M. Bagley on the west side; I. D. Newsome and A. L. Shirley on the north side; Frank Roeminele on the east side as stated above. Ed Cannon kept the City Hotel, lately torn down by Heard Bros. J. W. Throckmorton was the Governor of Texas. T. J. Brown now on the Supreme Bench, R. DeArmond, J. H. Jenkins, Joseph Bledsoe, Alexander Berry, Geo. T. Armstrong, Judge W. H. Andrews and Judge R. L. Waddill composed the McKinney bar. Drs. B. M. E. Smith, G. A. Foote and G. W. Patterson were the physicians of the town.
The only sidewalk in the town was on the west side of the public square and the only manufacturing plant or mill of any kind was an old inclined wheel ox mill that stood on the Dallas road about ten blocks south of the square near the place where Ballew was hanged in 1872.
All of Short’s addition, Petersburg, Russellville, College Hill, Fairfield were then in farms. From these facts it can readily be seen how McKinney has grown and developed from a village of 500 souls to a solid, up-to-date, beautiful city of 7000 inhabitants possessing more wealth in proportion to population than any city in the United States, outside of Galveston and Hartford.
