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Entry from March 17, 2008
We Shoot Straight With You (Gun Barrel City motto)

Gun Barrel City (near Dallas) incorporated in the 1970s and got its name from Gun Barrel Lane (now State Highway 198). The town’s motto is: “We Shoot Straight With You.”
 
The Gun Barrel Steak & Game House in Jackson Hole, Wyoming has an original 1950s sign with this motto that comes from the Texas town.
   
 
Wikipedia: Gun Barrel City, Texas
Gun Barrel City is a town in Henderson County, Texas, United States. The population was 5,145 at the 2000 census.
 
The town began as an unincorporated community in the 1960s after completion of Cedar Creek Reservoir. It was incorporated in the early 1970s so it could legally sell beer and wine. The town takes its name from a former road, Gun Barrel Lane (which is now State Highway 198), as well as its motto, “We Shoot Straight with You” and its symbol (a rifle).
 
Handbook of Texas Online
GUN BARREL CITY, TEXAS. Gun Barrel City lies on the eastern shore of Cedar Creek Reservoir fifty miles southeast of Dallas and twenty miles northwest of Athens in northwestern Henderson County. The community developed after construction of the reservoir in the mid-1960s and grew rapidly. Sixty residents were reported there in 1970 and 3,526 by the early 1990s. In 2000 the population was 5,145. In the early 1970s residents of Gun Barrel City voted to incorporate so that local establishments could sell beer and wine. The town name is derived from its motto, “We shoot straight with you,” and its symbol, a rifle. Long before the lake was built, Gun Barrel Lane (now State Highway 198) traversed the area. This mud road was a shortcut across Cedar Creek from Mabank to Trinidad and Seven Points. In 1987 community residents began local beautification projects and also collected aluminum cans as a fund-raising project to help restore the battleship Texas (see BATTLESHIP TEXAS STATE HISTORIC SITE). On two different occasions the city received second place in the Governor’s Community Achievement Awards. During the early 1990s the area supported two community newspapers, the Monitor and the Cedar Creek Pilot.
Linda Sybert Hudson
     
The Gun Barrel (Jackson Hole, WY)
The Gun Barrel Steak & Game House, which is locally owned and operated, opened in 1993 in what had formerly been the Wyoming Wildlife Museum & Taxidermy. The Gun Barrel Steak & Game House name was taken from the small east Texas town of Gun Barrel City. The original 1950’s hand-painted town sign was given to us by the town.
 
14 June 1982, New York (NY) Times, “The Man Who Beat A.T.&T.” by Andrew Pollack, pg. D1:
This is the headquarters of the best little mobile phone company in Gun Barrel City, a town of 2,200 people about an hour an a half’s drive southeast of Dallas. “We shoot straight with you,” says the welcoming sign at the city line.
 
28 September 1995, Pacific Stars and Stripes (Tokyo, Japan), pg. 10, col. 1:
GUN BARREL CITY, TX—“We Shoot Straight” is the motto of Gun Barrel City.
 
Google Groups: triangle.politics
Newsgroups: triangle.politics
From: .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) (George Greene)
Date: 1995/11/01
Subject: The Progressive Populist(2/8)
 
Neither Yarborough nor Justice currently reside in Henderson County, but their influence cannot be denied. A couple of years ago, all that liberal influence came back to haunt the good citizenry of Gun Barrel City. It was time to replace the city signs. In the past, the signs had a picture of a long-barreled shotgun, with the caption, “Welcome to Gun Barrel City, We Shoot Straight With You.” But all this talk about gang violence and arms-for-hostages and crazed postal workers caused one ol’ liberal codger to go plum loony and suggest to the city council that perhaps a picture of a shotgun would send a bad message to the youth of the city. (Gun Barrel is a retirement community, so the “youth” were probably somewhere in their early 60s.) A ruckus ensued, with several folks chasing the liberal into the parking lot and threatening to “git a rope.” The last anyone saw of the liberal in Gun Barrel City was his tail lights headed west. We did get a decidedly more friendly sign, though: a shotgun pointed
at a heart.
 
Google Groups: cn.bbs.literal.fantasy
Newsgroups: cn.bbs.literal.fantasy
From: .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) (xf)
Date: 01 Sep 2003 13:10:35 GMT
Local: Mon, Sep 1 2003 9:10 am
Subject: queen of the damned_PARTI_02
 
So she had headed out of Dallas early, making Cedar Creek Lake in less than an hour, and there was the familiar sign that meant her sweet little old home town:
WELCOME TO GUN BARREL CITY. WE SHOOT STRAIGHT WITH YOU.
   
Yellowstone Experience
Sunday, September 5, 2004
(...)
We arrived in Jackson Hole, Wyoming around 7:00pm. We found a room at the Elk Country Inn and promptly made our way to the best steak house in town called The Gun Barrel. The Gun Barrel Steak House was named after a town in Texas…Gun Barrel City, which is about 50 miles from where I live. After reading the history sheet provided on the menu, it seems that Gun Barrel City, Texas donated a city sign to the restaurant. So, a bond was made between this small, East Texas town and Jackson Hole Wyoming. Since I live near Gun Barrel City, I tried to get a free desert from the waiter, but to no avail.
 
Foodie Stuffs
Saturday, September 15, 2007
We Shoot Straight with You
(...)
Gun Barrel City is a town of 5,100. The population was only 60 in 1970, when the people voted on incorporation so that the town could legally sell beer and wine, and the population has just been growing exponentially ever since. Their motto is “We shoot straight with you.” Gun Barrel has won second place twice in the Governor’s Community Achievement Awards, and they have a water tower and everything.

Posted by Barry Popik
Texas (Lone Star State Dictionary) • Monday, March 17, 2008 • Permalink


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