Copyright © 2009-2010 Bishop Centennial Celebration, Inc. All rights reserved. Updated June 16, 2009
Centennial Celebration May 14 - 16, 2010
Francis Zion Bishop was reared on a Tennessee farm and came to Texas
in his teens. By 1905 he was in the insurance business in Corpus
Christi and had a firm intention of becoming “The Land Man” of
South Texas. Looking through the coach windows of the new St.
Louis, Brownsville & Mexico Railroad as he traveled for his firm,
he dreamed of a model town, surrounded by farms and
industries...and his choice of all the area was the south pasture
of the Driscoll Ranch.
His powers of promotion were sufficient to secure financial
backing for the start of the venture by 1910. Mr. Bishop himself
supervised the plat for the townsite. A 1911 newspaper story
about Mr. Bishop was headlined, “F. Z. Bishop Steps From Farm
Boy to Foremost Town Builder.” The story goes on to state: “Every
move with which he has been identified actively since coming to
Nueces County has proved successful, and in bringing success to
himself he has brought it to many others.”
Between 1910 and 1916, F. Z. Bishop and his land sales force, headed by Dan W. Taylor, opened
up 80,000 acres of farm land and aided in settling more than 2,000 people, with an established
economy in which cotton, grain and livestock furnished seventy-five per cent of the income.
After being plagued by financial setbacks, Mr.
Bishop came back to promote a number of
other Texas communities and to make
and lose other fortunes. From time to time
he returned to see how “his own town”
was getting along.
On June 11, 1950, he came back for the
last time...for burial at the site he had
chosen long before. Funeral services
were held in the First Methodist Church,
for which he had given the land and
helped in building, by the Rev. Roy H.
May, the pastor, assisted by the Rev. Carl
J. Schlomach, pastor of the First Baptist
Church, for which F. Z. Bishop had also
given the lot and aided in building.1
1From “F. Z. Bishop, Founder of Bishop”, by Mrs. Gail Tubbs and Leon Bertram, Bulletin Nueces
County Historical Commission, Vol. 3, No. 1 - Whole #4, November, 1990
Bishop, Nueces County, Texas 1910 - 2010 One Hundred Years of South Texas Heritage!
