The pride and pleasure of living in Linden is shown in this 1948 parade picture of the Allen brothers, longtime merchants in town. Linden has had a way for putting itself in a good light.
Here’s a better look at the 1948 parade winding around the Linden square. That’s the Fuller Supply float at the front.The look is eastward. Piggy Wiggly, the movie theater, county office building and post office can be seen.
Sometimes a town’s history can be remembered in the photograph of one person and their work.This picture of Leola Cole, born in 1890, tells she was working as a telephone operator in the Davis Building during the 1908 tornado. The building was destroyed
WHERE IS IT?
IS
Everyone enjoys a quiz. Even the one who knows the answers and is doing the asking. So, this week’s Where Is It? Mystery game is a quiz of seven questions and one discussion point. The subject of the quiz is the town of Linden. Do you know Linden well enough to brag to the tourist who has come to see Texas’s oldest courthouse still in continuous use? Here’s quiz to help you. Good luck.
Q.: At Linden’s beginning in 1851, what were the three sites being voted upon to be the county seat?
A.: Holcomb’s Bluff, Jefferson and Linden. Linden won, but it took two votes. The 1848 first vote was challenged by Jefferson and not until three years later was the vote finalized. Score: Linden, 256. Jefferson, 156.
Q.: What were the cheerful words written in the first court document recorded at the new county seat May 25, 1852?
A. “Hooray for us!” So wrote clerk George W. Norris. He was excited about LInden’s prospects and took time to explain. Of the new county seat he said, “Four families and three dwellings within the limits of the town tract... one grocery and blacksmith shop in operation. Hooray for us!”
Q.: How did Linden get its name and location?
A. Major Jeremiah M. Wood, a pioneer settler, asked the town be named for his hometown in Linden, Perry County, Tennessee. Others, including West Wood, Charles A. Graham and Edward W. Story agreed. This was done June 29, 1848.
Q.: What was unique about the county’s newspaper?
A.: The Linden newspaper traces its lineage to The Linden Times, first newspaper in the county begun in 1875 by Henry L. Neal. There’s more to the story. The newspaper’s printing press had to be dredged up from the Red River where it had been sunk to prevent its falling into the hands of federal soldiers in 1864.
Whew! OK, if you’ve persisted this far, here’s a few more modern-day questions.
Q.: What do the numbers 8, 11 and 155 have to do with Linden?
A.: They are state highways passing through town and are the route of the Texas Wildflower Trails Festival.
Q.: Why can Linden claim to be the ‘Gateway to Lakes Region’ even if it has no ponds within its 3.5 square miles of area?
A.: It brags that it is just minutes from Wright Patman Lake, Lake O’ The Pines and Caddo Lake.
Finally, to end this quiz, here are some details about the courthouse, Linden’s crown jewel.
Q.: Describe the early construction of the earliest courthouse in continuous use.
A.: Thomas J. Foster Sr. built the first courthouse in 1853. It lasted for six years when a larger building was needed. The first building was sold and moved to the corner where the First Baptist Church is now, but it was destroyed and lost in the 1908 cyclone.
The contract for new and present building was let in 1859 and by the middle of 1860, it was partially usable when the Civil War began. The building was not finished until after the war was over.
Around 1900, the first wing on the east side was added, and then in 1908 the cyclone blew away the courthouse’s cupola. All was replaced by 1911.
In 1917, two more wings and third floor were added. In 1933, fire destroyed part of the upper floor but only a few records were lost. Citizens were said to have rushed into the building and saved them.
The building was remodeled in 1977, and its newest wing was added in 197980. The latest restoration has taken the building back to its 1934 look, but underneath its exterior, it is a modern and functional facility.
Editor’s note: Citizens Journal-Sun is indebted to the written work of the late Charline Morris for most of these historical notes and facts.