The Gainesville, Henrietta and Western Railway Company (GH&W) was chartered on July 23, 1886, to build a rail line from Gainesville in Cooke County, Texas, to Seymour in Baylor County, Texas,[1] a distance of 130 miles (210 km).
Other towns vied for access to the railroad, such as Montague and Seymour;[2] however, land for the right-of-way was offered across northern portions of Cooke, Montague, and Clay Counties, and the railway produced new towns along the route, to include Myra, Muenster, Bonita, Nocona, and Belcherville, Texas.
[7] The line was consolidated with several others to benefit the Missouri-Kansas-Texas Railway through Legislative act on April 16, 1891.
The automobile and America's love affair with it brought the end to the small-town rail lines.
Many of the towns that developed along the line vanished long before the railroad, but others continue to prosper without it.