Quinlan

Quinlan is on State Highway 34 four miles west of Lake Tawakoni and twelve miles south of Greenville in south central Hunt County. The site was first known as Roberts, after Texas governor O. M. Roberts, who on October 26, 1882, sold 100 acres of land in southern Hunt County to the Texas Central Railroad. This land, "situated between the South and Caddo forks on the Sabine River," served as the location of the new town of Roberts, to which the Northeastern Branch of the Texas Central built. The line was reorganized as the Texas Midland Railroad in 1886 by Hetty Green, a bondholder in the defunct railroad, and the new road extended its track northward from Roberts through Greenville to Paris by 1894. In 1892 Edward H. R. Green, Hetty Green's son and president of the Texas Midland, abandoned Roberts as a depot and established a new depot town, Quinlan, 1½ miles north of the older community. The new community took its name from George Austin Quinlan, vice president and general manager of the Houston and Texas Central Railway.

Adapted from the official Handbook of Texas, a state encyclopedia developed by the Texas State Historical Association (TSHA). It is an authoritative source of trusted historical records.