John Gregory Hall

Lake Fannin Saved John Gregory Hall

These pages, using documents and photographs, will show why Lake Fannin in 2001 was added to the National Register of Historic Places. Purpose now must be to look at fraught events: at how a promise in 2001, nurtured first, was abruptly denied in 2013, so that Lake Fannin is again one of the most endangered historic sites in America. Starting late in the 1990's, hours and days of strenuous labor, special skills applied, and determined perseverance by Fannin county citizens working as Lake Fannin Volunteers had accomplished a transformation. Between 1934 and '38, spring-fed Lake Fannin in a North Texas county of the same name was enlarged and re-imagined for the enjoyment of people who were drawing their economic sustenance from the work they were about. The federal government's Rural Resettlement Administration in its larger purpose meant that farm families could again hope to own and cultivate productive land. Years later as they continued to enjoy the cool water and facilities of Lake Fannin for swimming, dancing, picnics, and family reunions, a treasured "sense of place" took hold. An extensive photographic record of the Resettlement work at Lake Fannin exists in the collection of the Fannin County Museum of History. The local director of the project, Malcolm Campbell, is credited for creation of this "album" which this book makes available to a wider public.