The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 62, July 1958 - April, 1959 Page: 561

Book Reviews

Dallas owe their origin to the railroads, including the Katy's
Airlawn District, which by 1950 had lured in thirty-six companies
which had spent more than $2o,ooo,ooo in improvements.
It seems almost picayune to point out errors and omissions,
but there are a few small ones, such as the wrong middle initial
for John H. Reagan. Curiously, John Spratt's The Road to Spin-
dletop seems to have been overlooked in the story of economic
development before the beginning of the twentieth century. But
such criticism should not obscure the fact that here is a book of
worth to anyone interested in the economic and industrial devel-
opment of the greater Southwest.
JOE B. FRANTZ
University of Texas
A History of Collin County, Texas. By J. Lee Stambaugh and
Lillian J. Stambaugh. Austin (Texas State Historical Asso-
ciation), 1958. Pp. x+3o3. Illustrations, bibliography, index.
$7.50.
Of the emigrants who came down the Texas Road in covered
wagons, looking for the Promised Land, some of the more discern-
ing stopped to acquire fertile farms in what became Collin County.
The soil proved good for wheat, and later for cotton as rail lines
were built to haul the bales of lint.
Originally Caddo Indian country and later partly included in
the Peters Colony, Collin County shared the orderly develop-
ment of the adjacent Blacklands. Without the excitement of cow-
men's wars or major oil strikes, the county's hard-working, thrifty
people prospered. Today many of them benefit from their near-
ness to Dallas.
Since little had been written on the history of Collin County,
this volume fills a real need. Fortunately, the authors have done
painstaking research and have made this one of the best of the
growing list of Texas county histories.
The book sketches briefly the topography and soils of the
county, which is drained by two forks of the Trinity River and
tributaries of the Sabine. It tells also of prehistoric life as revealed
by fossils, and of Indians who inhabited the area. Most of the
Indian depredations on early settlers, it points out, were made not
by the Caddo but by raiding Comanche from the west.

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