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this market, early progressive settlement of Paris <br />took place. Paris became a business and federal <br />court center for the Indian Territory. <br />Paris experienced an influx of merchants from <br />cities across the Red River. For this reason, <br />Paris never became dependent on any single <br />crop,, industry, or commercial undertaking. It <br />filled a commercial and industrial role, different <br />than its agrarian neighbors. By 1860, Paris was <br />populated with millers, furniture makers, etc. that <br />established Lamar County as a "high, wage" <br />industrial region with plenty of skiilled craftsmen <br />and trades, people., <br />The 1870s brought the flowering of the Parisian <br />culture with the publishing of various interests <br />and views in the inewspapers and journals. Paris <br />was also the home of several brillliant and/or <br />erratic thinkers. One such was William <br />McDonald. He was a wealthy lawyer who lived in <br />Paris and loved astronomy. On his deathbed, he <br />left the majority of his wealth to The University of <br />Texas, a place he never attended. A legal suit <br />was brought by his heirs over the estate; <br />however, the University of Texas was victorious <br />and used the funds for the construction of the <br />McDonald Observatory in the Davis Mountains of <br />West Texas. <br />In 1877, a devastating fire ravaged 13 acres of <br />the downtown area; most of the buildings <br />destroyed were in the Gothic Revival and <br />Italianate styles. As Iper the new city fire code, <br />the entire business district was rebuilt in brick or <br />stone in the Italianate or Second Empire style, <br />only to be destroyed again by another <br />devastating fire in 1916. <br />Paris was never a cattle town even though it was <br />the original Texas, home, and later burial place, of <br />one of the great ranching names of Texas history, <br />John Chisum. The most important economic <br />influence on Paris came from cotton. Cotton <br />brought wealth to the town and gave the small <br />town a world outlook.The cotton indlustry <br />Design Standards for the City of Paris, Texas 3 <br />