Savory, Fannin County, Texas

Probably the next largest town to Honey Grove, in point of size and commerce, is Savoy. This town has built up largely since the completion of the Texas & Pacific railroad, on which it is situated, about ten miles west of Bonham. The population is 500, and well provided with school facilities. Savoy College is a chartered institution, and perhaps takes the lead of all colleges in the county in patronage. The average annual attendance is over 200 students. Facilities for worship in the matter of church building are meager. One building still serves four different denominations. Savoy is noted for the large amount of country produce it ships annually, outside of cotton, corn and other grain. The number of chickens and eggs and the amount of butter and fruit, shipped east every year from this town is probably larger than that of any other town of its size in north Texas. Six dry goods houses and as many groceries, a drugstore, saddlery and harness, blacksmith and wood shops, a livery stable and two mills and gins constitute the business portion of the town. The town is regularly laid off, but without the inevitable "square" in the center. The inhabitants of Savoy, and the country surrounding it are intelligent, industrious and quit people. It is a rare thing to see any of them in the courts on account of a civil or a criminal matter.

Savoy acquired some historic notoriety, by reason of a great calamity that befell her in 1880. On the 28th day of May of that year, a cyclone, such as is rarely seen, even in the west, struck the town, without a moment's warning, almost totally annihilating it.
The destruction of life and limb as well as property was terrible, eleven were killed outright, and about sixty were wounded, four of whom died from their injuries. In one short half hour the busy, happy people were converted into a throng of mourners for the dead and wounded among them, and the smiling thrifty town became a mass of ruins and destruction, and trade was completely suspended.

The town has recovered almost completely from the misfortunes; so much so indeed, that a visitor would never see or notice a trace of the western terror, and but for the aching void left in the hearts of those who lost their friends and relatives, the cyclone and the terror it wrought would almost be forgotten.

Besides the produce before referred to, Savoy exports annually about 10,000 bushels of wheat, 20,000 of oats, from 7,000 to 10,000 bushels of corn and from 3,000 to 4,000 bales of' cotton.
Its trade, from the country south, like Bonham's, was impaired by the building of the Missouri Pacific, which crosses Texas Pacific four miles west, at a town called Bells in Grayson County, running a southeast direction through a fertile and thickly populated portion of the county. As the figures representing its trade will show, however, the town of Savoy has a solid agricultural district at her back, and one that is amply able to double her exports.

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