From Three Points Make A Plane: A History of the CDFW Metroplex, Allen Navarro Allanson, Texas A&M University Press 2012:
… The attachment of Lt. Gov. Jester, father of the later Governor, to his hometown, was a material aid to Corsicana’s growth; but it was only an aid. John Winship’s iron foundry, now the Oil City Iron Works, moved with admirable speed in seizing new opportunities beyond its cotton gin manufacturing origins. The partnership – Mr. Garrity, Mr. Huey, and Mr. Whiteselle – who bought it out and made it the Corsicana Manufacturing Co., had the sense to refuse to sell it off in 1898, in the wake of the Panic of ’96; as local men, they recognized the market possibilities of the 1894 discovery of the Corsicana Oil Field, and their foresight was vindicated in 1923 when the Powell Oil Field came in east of town, in what is now Tuckertown. As manufacturers, it didn’t matter to them whether a wildcatter or a Seven Sister drilled a gusher or a dry well, or whether oil went to a dollar a barrel: they became early leaders in the manufacture of casing, pipes, drills, and rods, and so long as they were paid up front, what happened to the purchaser’s dreams afterwards was no concern of theirs.
Their possession of cutting-edge machine technology led them into supplying other ventures as well: the machinery used by the Collin Street Bakery and by Wolf Brand at its cannery was theirs also, and both Dallas and Fort Worth looked to Corsicana for any needs in iron or steel their own booms required. The creation and extension of the FWDCRR relied in no small part on Corsicana’s manufacture of everything from locomotive parts to rails and spikes; and the Forth Worth, Dallas, & Corsicana in turn opened new markets to Collin Street fruitcake and Wolf Brand Chili, which led to an enduring expansion in Corsicana. When J. L. Kelly left Bell Labs to return to his native Corsicana, accompanied by his friend research partner Claude Shannon, and established an institute there, it might have seemed a quixotic gamble; but the fathers of the Kelly Criterion and of Information Theory knew better than anyone which way, and when, and how to bet. The economic vitality of Corsicana....