Salisbury

Salisbury was the first settlement in Hall County. When the Fort Worth and Denver City Railway was built through the northeastern part of the county in 1887, a construction camp was located seven miles north of the Red River near the headquarters of the Shoe-Bar Ranch, around which a few houses were clustered. A townsite company was formed and headed by Grenville M. Dodge, superintendent of the railroad. Backed by the Bugbee-Coleman (Shoe-Bar) Cattle Company, Dodge and his associates platted the town in the spring of 1888. A depot was erected, and by August a post office had been established. By 1889 Salisbury had about 100 residents as well as several stores, a hotel, a saloon, a blacksmith shop, a lumberyard, a livery stable, and two resident physicians. N. C. Blanchard launched a newspaper, the Hall County Record from his printing shop. However, the nearby town of Memphis to the north soon eclipsed Salisbury, which made an unsuccessful bid to become county seat in 1890. Most of the businesses, including the Record, were loaded on wheels and moved to Memphis by 1891. The depot was closed in 1893 and moved to Estelline four years later. By 1898 the townsite was abandoned. However, the name was kept alive into the 1930s with the existence of a rural school, which prospered and prided itself on sports events, including a champion girls' volleyball team. The Salisbury school declined somewhat after the high school grades began being bussed to Memphis in the 1930s.