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My wife was born and raised in Winnsboro. We still go there frequently to visit some of her family. A nice little town, though like many small towns, it has suffered some as businesses have pulled out over the years and the young people grow and leave home for the big cities.

But quite a bit of interesting history there, too. In the late 1970's, one of the few private banks left in Texas was closed after the bank owner/president committed suicide after he overextended the bank on some business loans that weren't getting paid back. Not sure what happened to the people's deposits in the bank, since it was not insured by FDIC since it was a private bank.

I was also told that the city had one of the original Carnegie Libraries. These were libraries built by Andrew Carnegie, a multi-millionaire back in the late 1800's/early 1900's. He built a couple of thousand libraries for a number of communities and universities during that time. Libraries were very important to communities - especially small communities - back in those days. I understand it was a really big deal back then to be selected for a Carnegie Library.

There's an old stone gymnasium that is still in use today that was built by the CCC (or WPA?) back during the Great Depression. It's pretty neat to see if you like that kind of old stuff.

There was also a big shootout there in town back during the Prohibition, I think. My memory is a little fuzzy on that story, but as I recall, it was something about some bars in town selling liquor, and some of the owners and some sheriff's deputies got into a gun fight one day, killing one or two of the bar owners and one or two of the deputies, maybe. I don't remember for sure, but if you go there, there is a historical marker that tells the story. I think it's like one or two blocks south of Broadway (the main road through the old downtown area).

A neat little old town, and they're working hard on creating events to bring in folks. It's worth making a quick swing through there if you're in the area.

Thanks for featuring it, Joe.