Bonham, Texas

Bonham is the seat of Fannin County, named for James Butler Bonham, one of the defenders who died at the Alamo in eighteen thirty-six. The town itself started as a settlement called Bois d'Arc in eighteen thirty-seven and took its current name in eighteen forty-four. It has always been farm country , cotton and cattle, a courthouse square, the quiet dignity of a county seat that knows it is not a city.

But Bonham also produced Sam Rayburn, who served forty-eight consecutive years in the United States House of Representatives and was Speaker longer than anyone in American history. Rayburn came back to Bonham every chance he could. He built his library and museum here in nineteen fifty-seven, four years before he died. In a town of this size, that is not a small thing.