Hyman Street is named for Joseph Henry Hyman, a Confederate officer who settled in Stephenville after the war. His daughter, Mary Hyman, wrote “The Judgement,” which horrified the good people of Stephenville and became the first book banned by the Stephenville Library. Another daughter, Susie Hyman, became the first post mistress. Years ago, I asked the Tarleton Library to see if they could locate a copy on Inter-Library loan. They found one someplace and I read it waiting for the great evil that would have caused so much trouble. And the morally unacceptable part of the book was that the abused woman divorced her husband and lived happily ever after – instead of going insane, suicide, or going to a nunnery. That ending was just too radical for the 1890s.

C. Richard King, Stephenville Streets, unpublished manuscript loaned by author, 1986.