george coppell came here

In 1998, former president of the Coppell Historical Society, Wheelice 'Pete' Wilson, discovered that George Coppell was a wealthy banker from New York who specialized in reorganizing railroads.  He was a major bond holder in the St. Louis, Arkansas and Texas Railroad which was built through our town which was then named Gibbs.  In 189o, a depot was built and named Coppell.  Two years later, the town changed its name from Gibbs to Coppell.  It had been named Gibbs in 1873 after Senator Barnett Gibbs.  For 106 years until Pete Wilson's discovery, the residents of Coppell didn't know who the town was named after.  Many thought it was named after an engineer who worked on the railroad.  I have often heard people say:
"George Coppell was a wealthy banker from New York City who never came here."
Because Pete Wilson couldn't find any evidence back in 1998 that George Coppell had visited the area, it became common belief that "George Coppell never visited here."  After doing some research on the Library of Congress website, here is some clarification:
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  • Did George Coppell visit Fort Worth & Dallas prior to the railroad being built?  Yes

    George Coppell, along with the other investors in the St. Louis, Arkansas & Texas Railroad, visited Fort Worth and Dallas on February 7th & 8th, 1887.  That was prior to the railroad being extended from Commerce, through Gibbs and onto Fort Worth. 
    ​See railroad timeline map and the articles from the Fort Worth Daily Gazette and the Dallas Daily Herald below.

  • Did George Coppell step foot in Gibbs or Coppell?  Most likely No.  In 1890, the depot was built with his name on it on the St. Louis, Arkansas & Texas railroad track that had been built two years earlier.  In 1891, George Coppell resigned from the Board when the railroad was reorganized and became the St. Louis Southwestern Railroad.  By 1892 when the town of Gibbs changed its name to Coppell, George Coppell was no longer a director, had no financial interest in the railroad and would have had no cause to travel all the way from New York City to a small town with less than 100 people to visit it.​

  • The train, which had departed from Waco on February 7th, arrived in Fort Worth at 9 pm that evening with little advanced notice.  In the private car which it pulled were the following:
  • ​The next morning, they met with the mayor and officials from Fort Worth who were encouraging them to extend the railroad from Commerce to Fort Worth.  They took everyone on a grand tour of the city. In addition to the above, the group included:
    • Joseph H. Brown, grocer.  Joseph H. Brown, a native of Scotland, opened a store and, in nine years, it was the largest wholesale grocery south of St. Louis. It was not unusual for this “prince of grocers” to have 30 carloads of flour and 20 of bacon en route at a time.
    • Colonel Morgan Jones, railroad builder.
    • Otis Eaton

  • ​At 2:30 pm, they all departed by train to Dallas where the continued on to Commerce, St. Louis, and New York.

  • At 7:00 pm that same evening at the White Elephant Saloon in Fort Worth, the famous shootout between Longhair Jim Courtright and Luke Short occurred. Can you imagine what would have happened if that had happened earlier in the day?​​










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  • Fourteen months later on 4/14/1888, the St. Louis, Arkansas & Texas was opened through Gibbs.

  • In 1890, a small railroad depot was built on that railroad line in Gibbs. The stop was given the name "Coppell" after George Coppell.

  • In January 1891, George Coppell resigned from the Board of the St. Louis, Arkansas & Texas Railroad when it became the St. Louis & Southwestern Railroad. At that point, he would have had no oversight or vested interest in the railroad.

  • On June 29, 1892, the town changed its name from Gibbs to Coppell.  The population wasn't more than a few hundred people.  Postmaster, W.O. Harrison would have learned the pronunciation of the name when mail was delivered to him by agents on the railroad.

  • Nine years later, in 1901, George Coppell passed away.  Nobody from the town of Coppell in Texas knew who he was and had contacted him.  While reorganizing and managing other railroads, George Coppell likely had no interest in traveling across the country simply to visit a small town with a railroad depot named after him on a railroad that he no longer had a vested interest in.

  • Without understanding the timeline of events above, it is easy for people in the thriving city of  Coppell today with a population of 45,000 to wonder why its namesake never visited the place.

  • The reality is that the time period between 1892 and 1901 was long before transportation with automobiles and airplanes.  It was far more difficult and time consuming to travel than it is today.  During those nine years after the town was named after him and he died, he had no business that would have caused him to come to Texas.

  • Given those facts, one might then ask why should residents of Coppell today care about its namesake, George Coppell?  The history of the St Louis, Arkansas & Texas Railroad which became the St. Louis & Southwestern Railroad named "The Cotton Belt Route" shaped the history of what would become the Dallas Fort Worth Metroplex.  It helped make the area become an international transportation hub with the building of major interstate highways through it, the building of the 2nd busiest airport in the world, DFW International Airport next to it, and now the building of a new DART light rail line on its on top of it tracks.

  • While George Coppell never stepped foot in the town named after him, he did visit Fort Worth and Dallas on February 7th & 8th, 1887 and helped shape its history.
Map Showing the Construction Timeline of The Cotton Belt Route
(Red arrow pointing to Coppell)
Fort Worth Daily Gazette, Monday, February 8th, 1887 discussing the preceding evening.
Fort Worth Daily Gazette, February 9th, 1887 describing the previous day.
Dallas Daily Herald, Wednesday, February 9th, 1887 - describing the shootout between Jim Courtright and Luke Short.