Off The Beaten Path - Telephone, TX & Sudan, TX

[joe817]

TELEPHONE, TEXAS. Telephone is at the intersection of Farm roads 273 and 2029, twelve miles northeast of Bonham in northeastern Fannin County. While settlers had moved into the vicinity as early as the 1870s, the community was not established until around 1886. It was named for the fact that the only telephone in the area was in the local general store owned by Pete Hindman. Apparently postal authorities had repeatedly refused Hindman's applications for a post office in his store because the names he submitted for it were already being used by other Texas post offices. The merchant finally submitted the name Telephone. The name was accepted, and the post office was opened in 1886. By 1890 the community population had reached thirty, and it reached 100 on the eve of World War I. The number of residents remained at about that level through the mid-1930s, when the population stood at ninety-nine. The community had eight businesses in 1936. Unlike many rural communities, however, Telephone grew noticeably during the late 1930s and early 1940s. By the mid-1940s it had ten businesses and 280 residents, a population that was reported through the 1960s. Eleven businesses operated locally by 1967. In 1990 Telephone reported a post office, six businesses, and 210 residents. The population remained the same in 2000.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
SUDAN, TEXAS. Sudan is at the junction of U.S. Highway 84, Farm roads 298, 303, and 1843, and the Santa Fe Railroad, in west central Lamb County. The area was once on school land granted to the county in 1892, then part of the 77 Ranch, owned by S. B. Wilson and Wilson Furneaux. The school lands were sold in 1893, then passed to Wilson and Furneaux in 1916. The town developed in 1917–18 with a hotel and service from the Santa Fe Railroad, which had built a branch line from Lubbock to Texico, New Mexico, in 1913. The land company manager and first postmaster, P. E. Boesen, suggested the town's name in 1918. A gin was built in 1922 and a bank established a year later. The town was incorporated in 1925, when the population was 600, up from a population of only fifteen in 1920. The first of several grain elevators was also erected in 1925 and the Sudan News began publication. The population was 1,014 in 1930, 1,336 in 1950, 976 in 1970, and 1,091 in 1980. In 1990 it was 983. The population reached 1,039 in 2000.