Gainesville (Texas)

Gainesville is a city in and the county seat of Cooke County, Texas, United States. The population was 16,002 at the 2010 census. It is part of the Texoma region.HistoryFounded in 1850, the city of Gainesville was established on a 40acre tract of land donated by Mary E. Clark. City residents called their new community "Liberty", which proved short-lived, as a Liberty, Texas, already existed. It was suggested by one of the original settlers of Cooke County, Colonel William Fitzhugh, that the town be named after General Edmund Pendleton Gaines. Gaines, a United States general under whom Fitzhugh had served, had been sympathetic with the Texas Revolution.The first hint of prosperity arrived with the Butterfield Overland Mail stagecoach in September 1858, bringing freight, passengers, and mail. During the Civil War, the Great Hanging at Gainesville, a controversial trial and hanging of 40 suspected Union loyalists, brought the new town to the attention of the state and came close to ripping the county apart. In the decade after the Civil War, Gainesville had its first period of extended growth, catalyzed by the expansion of the cattle industry in Texas. Gainesville, only 7mi from the Oklahoma border, became a supply point for cowboys driving herds north to Kansas. The merchants of Gainesville reaped considerable benefits from the passing cattle drives.