Carpenters Bluff

Carpenter's Bluff is on the Red River and Farm Road 120 twelve miles northeast of Sherman in extreme northeastern Grayson County. The settlement, established about 1860, derived its name from that of an early settler who operated a ferry across the Red River. After 1865 a number of disreputable persons who frequented the local general store and saloon earned the community the nickname Thiefneck. Law-abiding citizens soon drove these men from Carpenter's Bluff, however, and the nickname was forgotten.

By the early twentieth century the Kansas, Oklahoma and Gulf Railway had constructed a bridge across the Red River at Carpenter's Bluff. The Texas and Pacific Railway later owned and operated the bridge. At some time a one-lane shoulder was added to the bridge to allow automobile traffic. The Texas and Pacific relinquished control of the bridge in 1966, turning authority over to officials of Grayson County and Bryan County, Oklahoma. Soon thereafter the bridge was converted to accommodate two lanes of automobile traffic. By 1936 Carpenter's Bluff had a population of seventy-five and four businesses. Ten years later the population had increased to 120, and the town still had four businesses.