Strawn Train Depot Comes Back Home -- May 2014
The historic Strawn train depot arrived home and was relocated to Memorial Park on May 17, 2014, 34 years after being sold and moved in 1980. After the depot closed in 1976, it was moved to Thurber next to the Smokestack Restaurant, where it remained for several years. It was later bought and moved to Oakdale where the warehouse portion of the depot is now used as part of the Oakdale Steakhouse. The office portion of the depot (with ticket windows and waiting rooms) was placed in a field next to the owner’s house. In 2012, after learning that the owner was willing to donate the depot and wanted Strawn to have it back, the Museum Board (Bill D. Hinkson, John Ferguson, Shirley Lindsay, Lou Jones, Diana Hinkson) began raising money and planning its return.Â
The old rock building that houses the Gordon Community Library & Museum is possibly the oldest structure in Gordon. According to John Boyd Harlin, son of the man who once operated a store in the building, the building was built sometime between 1880 and 1900 from sand rock taken from a quarry on top of Swank Mountain (the mountain that is on the northern edge of Gordon just east of Highway 919). It was built by Silas Graves, a local man who operated a store there, probably groceries. In about 1922...
The Davidson Cemetary located east of Strawn on the old Johnson mine spur, is one of the largest and most picturesque family cemetaries in Texas. Davidson started the cemetary in July 1864. It was on Davidson’s original farm and ranchland that a man by the name of James Reed was killed by the Indians. James Reed’s decendents placed a permanent marker on his grave in 1989.