Whitewright Cotton Oil Mill Payroll — Grayson County

Whitewright was established in 1878 when investor William Whitewright purchased land in the path of the Missouri, Kansas and Texas Railroad. Within ten years the community had two cotton gins, two banks, three hotels, and Grayson College. By the mid-1920s both the Katy and Cotton Belt served Whitewright, with sixty-eight businesses including manufacturers of cottonseed oil and flour. The town marketed cotton, wheat, and corn from surrounding blackland farms. Cotton-boom folklore imagines mill-payroll chests and gin receipts buried during the Great Depression, when Whitewright's business count fell from sixty to forty-six. Coordinates mark downtown Whitewright on State Highway 11.