Sherman plans downtown plaza for old Texas Theater sign

Sherman sought construction bids this summer for a downtown plaza at Houston and Crockett streets in Grayson County. According to city project documents, the plaza would give the old Texas Theater sign a permanent home decades after the theater came down.

The city calls the work the Historic Texas Sign and Plaza project. A state registration filed July 9 names the City of Sherman as owner and puts the estimated cost at about $120,000. That number is an estimate on a registration form. It does not record what the city will actually spend.

The city's proposed historical plaque places the theater at 112 E. Houston Street. That address is two blocks east of the planned display.

The bid notice shows the city advertised the job July 21, with bids due Aug. 11. The draft construction agreement gives the builder 90 calendar days to finish once work mobilizes. Its lines for the contractor's name and payment are blank. The document therefore does not show an award, and it sets no opening date.

The plaza builder will not handle the sign. The bid documents put its refurbishment and installation under a separate sign-installer contract. The city will do the landscaping and irrigation.

The plaque text traces the theater's life. The Texas opened April 21, 1931. A major fire hit in January 1939, and the theater reopened after a renovation. The sign arrived in the 1940s. The city's account dates the last screening to Nov. 5, 1972. The building then stood empty for 16 years and was demolished in 1988.

The sign outlived the building. The plaque credits Roger Sanders with saving it and later lending it to the Bullock museum in Austin. A 2011 Texas House publication documented the sign on display there, long after the theater was gone. The plaque says the sign was donated to Sherman in 2025 for permanent display.

Sherman's July 2025 downtown strategic-plan exhibit also proposes more parking and green space. Those targets cover the downtown district as a whole.

In nearby Denison, the Texas Historical Commission reported in April 2025 that the Main Street district had drawn more than $80 million in investment, most of it from private investors. The district also won a 2025 Great American Main Street Award. The commission's figures cover the district's wider revival. Statewide, the commission credits its Main Street program with billions of dollars in reinvestment since 1981. That total covers the whole program and does not forecast the Sherman sign's effect.

Tulsa found a new home for an old sign in a similar way. The National Park Service reports that the city's Meadow Gold sign was saved from demolition in 2004 and put into storage. A Park Service grant helped pay for its restoration. In 2009 the sign went up at a different spot on Route 66.