Because many residents of North Texas had migrated from the Upper South and only a low percentage were slaveholders, considerable Unionist sentiment existed in the region.

E. Junius Foster, the publisher of Sherman's antisecessionist Whig newspaper, the Patriot, circulated a petition to establish North Texas as an independent free state.

The Sherman Male and Female High School began accepting students in 1866, under the patronage of the North Texas Methodist Conference.

The Sherman Female Institute, later called Mary Nash College,[8] opened in 1877 under sponsorship of the Baptist Church.

[9] While general depression and lawlessness occurred during the Reconstruction, Sherman remained commercially active.

The tornado had a damage path 400 yards (370 m) wide and 28 miles (45 km) long, killing 73 people and injuring 200.

Through the connections in Dallas and Denison, travel to the Texas destinations of Terrell, Corsicana, Waco, Fort Worth, Cleburne, and Denton, became possible, as well as to Durant, Oklahoma, by interurban railways.

During the Sherman Riot of May 9, 1930,[11] the Grayson County Courthouse was burned down by local citizens in an attempt to lynch George Hughes, an African American suspected of assaulting a white woman.

After rioters retrieved Hughes' body from the vault, it was dragged behind a car, hanged, and set afire.

[16][11] Sherman is located slightly east of the center of Grayson County, between Denison to the north and Howe to the south.

In 2022, Texas Instruments broke ground to build an Integrated Circuit fab campus in Sherman.

Sherman operates under a council-manager form of local government, and is a home rule city under Texas state law.

(The latter is locally designated as the Buck Owens Freeway after the famous musician who was born in Sherman.)

General aviation service is provided by Sherman Municipal Airport and North Texas Regional Airport/Perrin Field in Denison.

A semi-professional baseball team called the Sherman Shadowcats will begin play in the Mid-American League during late spring of 2024.

[29] A minor league soccer club, Texoma FC, will begin play in the city during 2025.