In 1862, during the Civil War, the Great Hanging at Gainesville, a controversial trial and lynching of 40 suspected Union loyalists, brought the new town to the attention of the state and came close to ripping the county apart. In 1860, Cooke County voted against secession. The first hint of prosperity arrived with the Butterfield Overland Mail stagecoach in September 1858, bringing freight, passengers, and mail. Gaines, a United States general under whom Fitzhugh had served, had been sympathetic to the Texas Revolution. One of the original settlers of Cooke County, Colonel William Fitzhugh, suggested that the town be named after General Edmund Pendleton Gaines. City residents called their new community 'Liberty', which proved short-lived, as Liberty, Texas, already existed.

It is part of the Texoma region and is an important Agri-business center.įounded in 1850, the city of Gainesville was established on a 40-acre (16 ha) tract of land donated by Mary E. Its population was 16,002 at the 2010 census.

Gainesville is a city in and the county seat of Cooke County, Texas, United States.

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