Hutchins, Texas: Named for the Man Who Built the Railroad

Settlement at what became Hutchins began around eighteen sixty, when a trading community grew along the west bank of the Trinity River near Dowd's Ferry. The Houston and Texas Central Railway reached the site in eighteen seventy-two, and the town was named for William J. Hutchins, then the president and general manager of the railroad.

The arrival of the rails immediately made Hutchins a trading hub: gins, gristmills, general stores, a school, and a church were all operating by the end of that year. By eighteen eighty-four the town had a population of two hundred fifty and a wagonmaker. Hutchins was officially incorporated in nineteen forty-five and today sits along Interstate Forty-Five and the Union Pacific main line, a node in the Dallas freight corridor.