The Cisco Timeline

From a settlement called Red Gap to a railroad town, an oil boomtown, and the home of the Big Dam: Cisco's history, year by year, with sources.

1878–79
The Rev. C. G. Stevens arrives, opens a post office and church, and names the settlement Red Gap.source
1881
The Houston and Texas Central Railway crosses the Texas and Pacific near Red Gap, and residents move their town to the crossing. That August, Cisco narrowly loses the county-seat election to Eastland, 354 votes to 324.source
1884
The town is officially recognized and named Cisco, after New York financier John Cisco.source Railroad brochures sell it as the “Gate City of the West.”
1893
On April 28 a tornado tears through Cisco, killing at least 23 people.source
1909
O. C. Britton opens a school in Cisco. Randolph College later reopens it in 1923, and Cisco Junior College eventually takes over the Randolph campus.source
1916
Henry Mobley builds the 40-room Mobley Hotel.source
1917
Oil strike at nearby Ranger sets off the Eastland County boom.source
1919
Conrad Hilton comes to buy a bank and buys the Mobley Hotel instead, his first hotel.source
1920
The census counts 7,422 people in Cisco, the most in its history.source
1923
The Big Dam is completed on September 7, creating Lake Cisco.source
1927
The Santa Claus Bank Robbery (see below).
1940
Cisco Junior College opens. It is renamed Cisco College in 2009.source
1955
The city gets a permit to dam Battle Creek to make up for Lake Cisco's lowered level.source
1970s
The famous swimming pool below the dam closes to the public.source
1981
The Mobley Hotel is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.source
2000–2011
Frac Tech grows from a Cisco partnership into a major fracking company; it sells in a 2011 deal worth about $3.5 billion.read more
2021
Volunteers open the Old Zoo Nature Trail near the dam.source
2022
ProFrac acquires FTS International, Frac Tech's successor company.source
2023
The Big Dam turns 100.source
2026
The 8th annual Cisco TX Pie Fest fills downtown on October 17.source

December 23, 1927

The Santa Claus Bank Robbery

Two days before Christmas, Marshall Ratliff walked into Cisco's First National Bank dressed as Santa Claus, with three accomplices. They took about $12,400 in cash (the historical marker says $12,200), and a gunfight broke out in the streets as they fled with two young girls as hostages.source

Police Chief G. E. “Bit” Bedford was killed that day, and Deputy George Carmichael died of his wounds in January 1928. Several others were wounded.source The gang was captured, and the case ended in 1929 with one robber executed and Ratliff killed by a mob in Eastland.source

A state historical marker placed in 1967 stands at the bank site, 708 Avenue D.source We remember the officers who gave their lives that day.

Receipts

Sources

Every fact on this site comes from the sources below. Where sources disagree, we use the most cautious wording, or leave the detail out.

The Cisco Timeline

The Santa Claus Bank Robbery

Sources

Take a piece of the Big Dam home.

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