Cisco Texas History

Cisco Texas Summary

The surrounding territories were originally inhabited by the Comanche Indians. The U.S. Government dispatched soldiers to the area to build forts and to ease tensions between the Indians and the settlers. One of the areas settled is now called Cisco, Texas.

Cisco Texas Located, at the intersection of U.S. Highway 183 and Interstate Highway 20, in northwestern Eastland County. The original town was called Red Gap.

It's history dates back to 1878 or 1879, when Rev. C. G. Stevens arrived in the area, established a post office and a church, and called the frontier settlement Red Gap.

W. T. Caldwell was running a store a half mile to the west. In 1881 the Houston and Texas Central Railway crossed Texas, which had come through the year before. The town's name was changed to Cisco for John A. Cisco, a New York financier largely responsible for the building of the Houston and Texas Central.

Railroads continued to influence the development of Cisco as the Texas and Pacific acquired lots in the town and sold them to immigrants attracted by brochures touting the town as the "Gate City of the West"

During the 1880s a Mrs. Haws built and managed the first hotel, and Mrs. J. D. Alexander brought the first "millinery and fancy goods" to town. By 1892 Cisco was a growing community with two newspapers, a bank, and an economy based on trade, ranching, fruit farming, and the limestone, coal, and iron ore available nearby. A broom factory and roller corn and flour mills were among the town's fifty-six businesses.

In 1893 a tornado hit Cisco, killing twenty-eight people and destroying or damaging most of its homes and businesses.

Although Cisco played a relatively minor role in the Eastland County oil boom of 1919-21, its population grew rapidly at the time, with some estimates as high as 15,000; in the wake of the boom Cisco adopted a city charter and built a new railroad station that cost $25,000.

Probably the best-known event in Cisco history was the Santa Claus Bank Robbery. It occurred two days before Christmas of 1927, when four men robbed the First National Bank, taking $12,000 in cash and $150,000 in nonnegotiable securities. A chain of exciting events-including an attempt to steal a car foiled by a quick-thinking fourteen-year-old and a gun battle in which three people were killed, seven were injured, and two young girls were kidnapped-accounts for the many, often melodramatic, stories written about the robbery. One of the bandits eventually died of gunshot wounds, one served a prison sentence and was released, one died in the electric chair, and the last was lynched after shooting a jailer while trying to escape.

In the years following World War II, Cisco became increasingly dependent on oil and gas production, agriculture (primarily peanut culture), and manufacturing.

Cisco Junior College grew and was enrolling around 1,000 students in the early 1980s.

Residents applied to have the whole town named a historical district. They were inspired to seek recognition by a University of Houston professor who had come to Cisco to supervise the restoration of the Mobley Hotel, the first hotel owned by hotel magnate Conrad Hilton. In 1990 the population of Cisco was 3,813.

BIBLIOGRAPHY: Edwin T. Cox,

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