Fannin County Texas map
33.59° N · 96.11° W · County seat: Bonham · 899 sq mi · Central Time
Fannin County is the mother county of the northern Metroplex. Created in 1837, while Texas was still a republic, it was repeatedly cut up to make new ones — Collin, Denton, Cooke and Grayson all came out of its original territory. What is left is 899 square miles of blackland along the Red River, with Bonham at the center.
Bonham sits at the crossing of US-82 and SH-78 near the middle. The Red River and the Oklahoma line run along the north; Bois d'Arc Creek drains the county southeast.
Where Fannin County is
The county dates from the Republic of Texas, carved out of Red River County in 1837 and named for James Walker Fannin, Jr., who commanded the Texans executed at Goliad the year before.
Bryan County, Oklahoma lies directly across the Red River to the north. Within Texas the borders run against Lamar to the east, Delta to the southeast, Hunt to the south, Collin to the southwest and Grayson to the west. Fannin sits at the western edge of northeast Texas, on the transition from prairie to timber. Sherman is about 29 miles west, Paris 32 miles east and McKinney 41 miles southwest — close enough that commuters have started pushing north along SH-121 and US-69.
Cities and towns
| Place | Type | 2020 population |
|---|---|---|
| Bonham | City · county seat | 10,337 |
| Leonard | City | 2,062 |
| Honey Grove | City | 1,716 |
| Savoy | City | 806 |
| Trenton (part) | City | 743 |
| Ector | City | 737 |
| Ladonia | Town | 597 |
| Dodd City | Town | 370 |
| Bailey | City | 222 |
| Windom | Town | 190 |
| Ravenna | City | 175 |
| Whitewright (part) | Town | 15 |
| Pecan Gap (part) | City | 14 |
Whitewright lies mostly in Grayson County and Pecan Gap mostly in Delta County; the counts above are the Fannin County shares only.
Roads
- US-82 – the east–west trunk across the county through Savoy, Bonham and Honey Grove, linking Sherman to Paris.
- US-69 – north out of Bonham to the Red River bridge into Oklahoma, and south toward Greenville and I-30.
- SH-121 – the diagonal from Bonham southwest through Trenton toward McKinney and the Sam Rayburn Tollway that carries the same number.
- SH-78 – south from Bonham through Leonard toward Wylie and Garland.
- SH-56 – the northern route parallel to US-82, through Ravenna and Dodd City near the river.
- SH-11, SH-34 and SH-50 – the local grid connecting Ladonia, Ector, Windom and the Delta County line.
The Sam Rayburn house
Sam Rayburn represented this county in Congress from 1913 until his death in 1961 and served as Speaker of the U.S. House for seventeen years — longer than anyone before or since. He kept the same white two-story house on the western edge of Bonham the whole time, driving home between sessions, and it is preserved as the Sam Rayburn House State Historic Site with the furniture, books and 1947 Cadillac left as they were. The separate Sam Rayburn Library and Museum, opened in 1957 on the south side of town, holds his papers and a full-scale replica of the Speaker's office. Rayburn is buried in Willow Wild Cemetery in Bonham; the tollway across Collin and Denton counties carries his name.
Bois d'Arc Creek and the water
The county is drained by Bois d'Arc Creek, which runs northeast into the Red River, and by the headwaters of the Sulphur River in the southeast. The creek is named for the tough osage-orange trees that grew along it and that early settlers cut for fence posts and wagon parts. Northeast of Bonham the creek was dammed to create Bois d'Arc Lake, the first major reservoir completed in Texas in decades and a new water supply for the fast-growing suburbs south of the county line. Smaller Lake Bonham, north of town, has served the city itself for far longer, and Bonham State Park south of the seat has a small lake, camping and a trail network on the sandy hills above the prairie.