Bob Warren, the former mayor and Frisco historian, has a simple explanation of the city's founding.

"The railroad was Frisco's mother," he said.

The area thrived before the arrival of trains, but the rails were a big boon, Warren said. The fertile black soil in the area, combined with an abundance of water, made the portion of current-day Collin County attractive since the early 1800s.

After the Congress of the Republic of Texas appropriated money for the construction of a north/south road in 1838, Frisco became a transportation hub as part of the Shawnee Trail, which carried European immigrants south to Texas and Longhorn cattle north of the Red River. The passage way was later called the Preston Trail, which eventually turned into Preston Road (Hwy. 289).

"The city really started coming together in 1902," Warren said. "The railroad built a depot here to capture all the farm products, like bales of cotton, that were being produced. The railroad held an auction of several lots of land around here and that eventually became the city."

A railroad line was completed from Denison to Carrollton. The established community of Lebanon missed out on the rails because it was on high ground. Frisco's water supply was attractive as it was needed for the steam locomotives.

"Four miles east of Frisco was Lebanon and the city of Little Elm was west of here," Warren said. "People started moving here from both of those places. At one point, 16 homes were rolled on logs from Lebanon to Frisco."

The settlement was first called Emerson, named for Francis Emerson, owner of the farm where the town site was.

"The post office told them they couldn't use that name because it was too close to a name that was already being used," Warren said. "There was a town called Emberson in Lamar County. So the citizens went back to the drawing board and eventually named it after the railroad company."

The official name of the railway was the St. Louis-San Francisco Railway, but the full name was too long for a city. By 1904, the name Frisco City had been decided on but people were already shortening it to Frisco. The post office readily approved the new name.

Frisco incorporated in 1908, the same year residents elected their first mayor. The census of 1910, Frisco's first, showed a population of 332 pioneers.

The population had grown to 670 by 1938, when Warren graduated from Frisco High. He said the city didn't really grow much for its first 80 years, but it has made up for it during the last 25.

Despite the growth, the city continues to reflect its roots with a logo that resembles the one used by the Frisco railroad company more than 100 years ago.

"We didn't even have a city manager until 1987, because we couldn't hire one until our population was more than 5,000," Warren said. "Now we have almost 135,000, but we've decided to remember our roots. We've adopted that Frisco railway logo as our own."

Bob Warren was born in 1921 and served on the City Council before becoming mayor from 1989 to 1996. He has since turned historian, writing a book on the city titled "Frisco – Now and Then" published in 2004.