Aurora, Texas

Georgia native George Lawton Bledsoe (b. 1805), a carpenter and cotton gin builder, came to Texas in 1834. A veteran of the Texas Revolution and the Battle of San Jacinto, he received a pension for his military service…

Long before the airship story, Aurora got its name from something hopeful. Settlers arrived in the late 1850s, and the man credited with naming the place chose Aurora, after the Roman goddess of the dawn, by one account…

You're driving through Aurora, and just off the road is the Teague Cemetery. It's named for John Teague, who came here from Missouri in 1858 with his family. He fought in the War with Mexico and served on the frontier…

The tracks you see in Rhome are the reason there's a town here at all — but the name on the town isn't the railroad's. The Fort Worth and Denver City Railway had its line laid past this spot by 1882, pushing north out…

Before Rhome was Rhome, it was Prairie Point, a stagecoach crossroads settled by Missourians in the late 1850s and laid out by Samuel Sheets in 1858. By the early 1860s it was the second-largest place in Wise County,…

Rhome is on U.S. Highway 287/81 twelve miles southeast of Decatur in southeastern Wise County. A community known as Prairie Point, located at the crossroads of two stagecoach lines near the site of present Rhome, was…

You're driving past Rhome, where the United Methodist Church was organized in the 1880s. Early services were held in a schoolhouse, under brush arbors, and in a tent before their first building was finished in 1903. The…

You're driving past the site of Rhome's First National Bank. It all started in 1904, not as a national bank, but as a private venture by prominent businessman Dan Waggoner, who also ran a bank in nearby Decatur. His…

We have said clearly that this town is named for a rancher and not for Rome, Italy. But here is a genuine little twist that ties the two together in a way you would never guess. The Hereford cattle that made Byron Rhome…

The man this town is named for did not just raise cattle. He raised champions. Colonel Byron Rhome was known across the Southwest as the finest breeder of purebred Hereford cattle, the sturdy red animals with the clean…

Say the name out loud and your ear plays a little trick on you. Rhome. It sounds exactly like Rome, the ancient capital of Italy, home of emperors and gladiators. So let me clear this up right now, because it is a fair…

Rhome was actually named for Colonel Byron Rhome, a local rancher remembered for bringing the first Hereford cattle to Wise County, so the resemblance to ancient Rome is pure coincidence, right down to the extra letter.…

Here is the honest story of how this town got its name, and it has nothing to do with any city across an ocean. You are rolling through Rhome, Texas, spelled with an H, and it is named for a man: Colonel Byron Crandall…

Your ear heard Rome, but the truth is closer to home: this town was named in eighteen eighty-three for Colonel Byron Crandall Rhome, a Wise County rancher, and the echo of the ancient city is pure coincidence. Still,…

Those white-faced red cattle that made Byron Rhome famous did not start in Texas. They came from a green county in western England called Herefordshire, right on the border with Wales. And here is how a breed like that…

Newark is on Farm Road 718 two miles east of Eagle Mountain Lake and one mile north of the Tarrant county line in extreme southeast Wise County. Settlement began in the mid-1850s, when Benjamin B. Haney built a home…

Settlement in what is now Newark began in the mid-1850s, with the area known as Caddo Village due to remnants of the Caddo Indian culture along the West Fork of the Trinity River. The town's fortunes changed with the…

Boyd sits right in a bend of the West Fork of the Trinity River, and that bend explains a lot about the town. When a river rounds a curve, the water on the inside of the bend slows down and drops the silt it is…

You're driving past Boyd, Texas, and if you look closely, you might imagine a whole town on the move! This building, originally constructed in 1877, was the heart of Old Aurora, just two miles east of here. The ground…

Boyd worked through two other names before it settled on this one. Farmers settled in the early 1890s in a curve of the West Fork of the Trinity, in rich bottomland where hogs were turned loose to fatten, so the place…

Southeast of Boyd, along a rural road in Wise County, there is a memorial rebuilt in bright pink. It stands where the search for seven-year-old Athena Strand ended. Athena disappeared from outside her father's home near…

Between Boyd and Decatur, half a mile down a dirt lane off County Road forty-two twenty-seven, the Deep Creek Cemetery holds a headstone with a whole frontier story cut into it. It belongs to Sallie Bowman. Her father…

For its first half-century Boyd was a cotton-and-livestock town, but after the 1940s the farms here turned to a sweeter crop and the area became known as melon country. Those farm roots still flavor the place. For a…

Boyd High School baseball has won two state championships at the Dell Diamond in Round Rock. On June tenth, two thousand twenty three, the Yellowjackets beat Wall six to four there for the first state baseball…

You're driving through Boyd, Texas, a town with a name that changed almost as fast as the railroad lines! Originally settled in the early 1890s and known as Greasy Bend because farmers fattened hogs here, the community…

Of all the places for a movie legend to settle down, the actor who played Chewbacca in the Star Wars films chose a quiet ranch in Boyd. Peter Mayhew, the seven-foot-two Englishman behind the famous furry character,…

Boyd High School (Boyd, TX — Wise County, northwest of Fort Worth) won the 2026 UIL Class 3A Division I state baseball championship, beating London (Corpus Christi) 9-8 in the final.

Boyd, TX placed on the Texas high school baseball PLAYOFF HITS leaderboard for the 2026 postseason: Keelan Clary (16 hits, #15 in TX).

Boyd, TX placed on the 2026 Texas high school baseball PLAYOFF leaderboards (H=hits, HR=home runs, RBI, R=runs, SB=steals, K=strikeouts, H/IP=hits per inning): Will McIntire — 47 K (#3), .440 H/IP (#12); Lane Beacham —…

You're driving through Newark, Wise County, and right here is the site of the very first post office in the county, established way back on September 8th, 1855. The first postmaster was Benjamin B. Haney, who was also…

You're driving through what used to be Deep Creek, settled around 1854 by folks like Sam Woody and Tom McCarroll. They farmed cotton and corn, raised cattle, and built a church that also served as a schoolhouse. But…

You're driving through Pleasant Grove, home to one of three communities with that name in Wise County. This spot has been a center of life since the late 1870s, when the earliest graves were marked here. In 1879, a…

The existence of Boyd is a story of farming and railroad politics. Farmers settled here in the early 1890s, in a curve of the Trinity's North Fork, and called the place Greasy Bend -- the bottomland was used to fatten…

This town is where an NFL gunslinger got his start. Billy Joe Tolliver grew up right here, and his athletic talent was obvious early on at Boyd High School. He went on to become a record-setting quarterback for Texas…

In 2011, the new Boyd High School was completed, which is three times the size of the former high school building. This expansion was necessary to accommodate the growing population of the town.

Nestled in Parker, Tarrant, and Wise counties, Briar is a picturesque community near the west side of Eagle Mountain Lake. The area spans 21.9 square miles, with 20.5 square miles of land and 1.5 square miles of water,…

The road you're likely driving on, Farm to Market 407, is a perfect piece of engineering history. The 'FM' road system was a massive Texas infrastructure project started in the 1940s with a simple goal: get agricultural…

As you drive along Farm to Market Road 407, look at the street sign — along part of its length this road is Illinois Lane, and that is the oldest thing here. New Fairview grew out of a settlement called Illinois…

One of the oddest things about New Fairview is that it lives a double life. The city sits in Wise County, but a slice of it reaches across into Denton County, and that line has real consequences for the people who live…

Once known as Illinois Community, the main highway through the city, Texas Farm to Market Road 407, is named Illinois Lane in remembrance. The city was called Fairview until 1999, when the name was changed to New…

You're driving past the Thurmond-Fairview Cemetery. This burial ground began in 1883 when J. F. Thurmond asked neighbors to select a spot for a graveyard after his infant daughter died. He donated land for the church,…

You're driving through Decatur, and just ahead is the site of Sam Woody's Cabin. Woody, a pioneer from Tennessee, brought his family to Wise County in 1854 and built this cabin near Deep Creek. It was the very first…

You're driving through Fort Worth, and just a little ways from here, a story from the Texas frontier unfolds. It's September of <say-as interpret-as="date" format="y">1865</say-as>. Tensions are high between settlers…

You're driving past the site of the Anneville School. This community, likely named for early settler Annie Davis, got its start when land was donated in 1883 for a school, church, and cemetery. The original school…

You're driving past the Keeter Cemetery, serving this community for over a hundred years, starting in 1882. The oldest grave is Ida Mae Ryan, who lived from 1881 to 1882. Albert Lafayette Keeter, the namesake of the…

You're driving past the historic New Hope Cemetery and Church. Back in 1875, pioneer settler Joseph Wren donated five acres right here for a community cemetery. That same year, the New Hope Baptist Church moved to this…

John Townes Van Zandt (1944–1997) — the Fort Worth-born songwriter behind 'Pancho and Lefty' and 'To Live Is to Fly' — is buried in the Van Zandt family plot at Dido Cemetery, northwest of Fort Worth. The Van Zandts…

Dido, sixteen miles northwest of Fort Worth on the eastern shore of Eagle Mountain Lake, is a true ghost town: founded in 1848 and named for the mythological queen of Carthage, it thrived with a post office and stores…

Dido was one of the first communities in Tarrant County: by 1848, settlers homesteaded this part of the Peters Colony along the stage route from Fort Worth to Decatur. The Dido School organized in 1854, with A.C.…

You're driving through Avondale, near where the Dido community first took root. Settlers homesteaded here in 1848, along a stage route from Fort Worth to Decatur. By 1854, they'd organized Dido School, with a teacher…

You're driving past the Dido Cemetery, a final resting place for many of Tarrant County's earliest settlers. The oldest marked grave here belongs to Amanda Thurmond, who died way back in 1879. Her grandfather, Dave…

The big water just east of town wasn't always here, and making it cost a few small communities their existence. Construction of the dam on the West Fork of the Trinity River began on January 23, 1930, finished on…

For decades Azle was just another quiet crossroads where not much happened and nobody was in a hurry. Then in 1932 they started building a dam on the West Fork…

May the 4th be with you — and with the Wookiee. Peter Mayhew the seven-foot-three British actor who brought Chewbacca to life in every Star Wars film from 1977…

You're driving past the Nelson Cemetery, originally donated by Hugh Nelson in the mid-1800s. The earliest dated stone marks his infant son, Hugh, who died in 1864. Many children's graves here date from a dysentery…

The seven-foot-three British actor who played Chewbacca in every Star Wars film from 1977 to The Force Awakens is buried right here at Azleland Memorial Park.…

You're driving past the Decatur area, the former stomping grounds of Texas Ranger Captain Ira Long. Born in Indiana and wounded twice fighting for the Confederacy, Long joined the Texas Rangers in 1874. He quickly rose…

You're driving through Sand Hill, a place that was the heart of pioneer culture in North Texas. Folks gathered here at a good spring, right near the hill that gave this community its name. Back in 1854, the first…

The land you're passing near looks like it belongs to a televangelist — because it does. That sprawling campus on the east side of Eagle Mountain Lake is Kenneth Copeland Ministries. But before Copeland bought it in…

Before Reno was a city, it was Parker's Shop, a scattering of farms gathered around a log cabin that served as both church and school. The settlement grew up along Walnut Creek, and Walnut Creek Baptist Church was…

Here is a problem you do not think about until it bites you: Texas has two incorporated cities legally named Reno. One is this one, in Parker and Tarrant counties. The other sits clear across the state in Lamar County,…

In the spring of two thousand twenty five, the little city of Reno put its own existence on the ballot. The question went back to two thousand twenty two, when former Mayor Eric Hunter led a petition drive to dissolve…

Reno has spent the last few decades transforming from a sleepy farming settlement into one of the faster-growing corners of Parker County. The population, just a few hundred into the 1960s, passed 2,800 by the 2020…

Reno's most colorful documented resident may be a barber named E.R. Bird Harris. In 1995, Harris was ninety-one years old and held what was reported to be the oldest barber's license still in active use anywhere in…

Starting in November 2013, people around Reno and nearby Azle felt something North Texas almost never feels: earthquakes. This part of the state had recorded very little felt seismic activity in its history, so a sudden…

The earthquakes beneath Reno did not require the ground to be torn apart. Changing the pressure of water inside ancient rock was enough to loosen faults that had stayed quiet for millions of years. Reno sits in the Fort…

A Reno post office opened back in 1884, but the place stayed tiny for most of the next century, a farm community held together by its church, its school, and a few small businesses. Reno did not formally incorporate as…

You're driving past the site of Walnut Creek Baptist Church, a congregation that's been serving this community for generations. It all started way back in 1867, with worship services held in a simple log cabin. By the…

You're driving past Trimble Cemetery, the main burial ground for the tiny community of Flatwood, also known as Davis City, in the late 1800s. Named for James W. Trimble, who bought land here in 1877, it was formally…

A few miles southwest of Reno, a small cemetery is the last clear physical reminder of a community that no longer exists, a place once called Sabathany. James and Margaret Clark settled there in 1865 and took in an…

East of here, under the water of Eagle Mountain Lake, is the site of a frontier raid. In April of eighteen sixty-seven, about sixty Kiowa riders, led by the chiefs Satank and Satanta, struck the home of William Hamleton…

You're driving through Azle, but just a few miles east, under the waters of Eagle Mountain Reservoir, lies the site of a dramatic Kiowa raid. It was April 1867. Led by Chiefs Satank and Satanta, about sixty Kiowa…

If you hear a deafening roar overhead out here on Eagle Mountain Lake, don't be alarmed. You're hearing what locals call the sound of freedom. Naval Air Station Joint Reserve Base Fort Worth sits a dozen-odd miles…

The very ground Pelican Bay is built on owes its existence to a monumental feat of 1930s engineering: the Eagle Mountain Dam. Before this, you would have been in the valley of the West Fork of the Trinity River. To…

In 1970 a man named Olen Yandell looked at his struggling dairy farm on the shore of Eagle Mountain Lake — the Circle-Y, a hundred and fifty head of cattle grazing the ground you're driving over — and saw something else…

Founded by Olen Yandell on his struggling dairy farm in 1970, Pelican Bay incorporated in 1981. Yandell had aspirations to create a new Sausalito, California, but Pelican Bay remains a modest enclave today.

Pelican Bay feels like a place that's been here forever, but it only became an official city in 1981. It started in 1970, when Olen Yandell began selling lots off his dairy farm on the Eagle Mountain Lake shoreline.…

Tarrant County lies within the Cross Timbers, a region defined by its mix of prairie grasses and woodlands. This transitional zone features rolling hills and diverse vegetation, a contrast to the flatter plains further…

You're driving past the site of the old Jay Bird Union School, Church, and Cemetery. This route, Jay Bird Lane, has been used since the 1860s. In 1883, local landowners donated land for a school building that also…

The throwing rings at Azle High School launched a genuine Olympian. Shelbi Vaughan, born August 24, 1994, grew up here and competed for the Azle Hornets, where in 2010 she won the Texas Class 4A state discus title with…

The rolling hills of Wise County, part of the Cross Timbers region, offered early settlers a mix of prairie and woodland, ideal for ranching and farming. Unlike the flatter plains to the west, the varied terrain…

Wise County, nestled in the rolling terrain of the North Texas Cross Timbers, finds its identity rooted in agriculture and community. This land, characterized by its mix of woodlands and prairie, proved ideal for…

A notable event in Cottondale's history is the burial of the infamous American gangster Machine Gun Kelly in the Cottondale Cemetery. He passed away of a heart attack at Leavenworth Prison on July 17, 1954, in…

Just northeast of Azle sits Eagle Mountain Lake, and the way it was built is a quietly clever piece of engineering. The dam went up on the West Fork of the Trinity River in the early 1930s, and rather than spanning the…

You're driving past the site of the New Salem Freewill Baptist Church, organized in April 1893 by Reverend Josephus Wesley Ford and other families. Reverend Ford pastored here until his death in July 1898, and the…

Reno does not have a documented century-old restaurant, but it does have a solid present-day favorite in Pop Pop Burgers, a family-run roadside spot out on Highway 199. The menu is exactly what you want from a Texas…

There are two places in Texas called La Junta. This one is a quiet Parker County crossroads. The other one has a far older story. Way out west, where the Rio Conchos meets the Rio Grande at Presidio and Ojinaga, lies La…

Paradise is a rural town in Wise County, near Fort Worth. On November thirtieth, two thousand twenty two, seven-year-old Athena Strand disappeared from outside her father's home there. A contract delivery driver for…

Imagine this spot in 1893. Paradise had been here for twenty years already -- Bill Anderson's general store, a post office since 1876, a place folks first called Eldorado and then Paradise Prairie for the wildflowers.…

The Paradise you see today was fundamentally re-drawn by a 19th-century engineering project: the railroad. This was not open country before it came -- there had been a store here since the early 1870s and a post office…

For a stretch of weeks late in 2013, the ground under Azle would not hold still. Starting in early November, residents felt the floor jolt, dishes rattle, and pictures tilt as a swarm of small earthquakes rolled through…

When Azle started shaking in 2013, scientists turned the town into a natural laboratory for induced seismicity, earthquakes triggered by human activity. A team led by Southern Methodist University geophysicists Matthew…

On the western edge of town lies the oldest piece of organized Azle there is. In 1871 two early settlers, town namesake Dr. James Azle Steward and John Giles Reynolds, each donated an acre of land to create Ash Creek…

Before it was a lake town or a bedroom suburb, Azle was farm country, and the soil between these creeks decided what people grew. Through its first decades the community lived on wheat, corn, peanuts, sorghum, and…

Out by the eighteenth green at Cross Timbers Golf Course, a state marker remembers one of the most unlikely lives in Texas. John Jeremiah Smith was born in Pennsylvania in eighteen twenty six, and as a young man he…

In early November nineteen fifty two, police dug into the woods near Azle and pulled up a one gallon thermos jug, sealed with paraffin wax. Inside was one hundred twenty eight thousand dollars. That money had a wild…

You're driving through Azle, Texas, the birthplace of William Hoyle Nix. Born in 1918, Nix became a legendary West Texas fiddler, a true exponent of the Bob Wills sound. His parents were musicians, and he learned his…

You're driving through Wise County, where a ghost of a railroad runs alongside you. The Dallas, Pacific & Southeastern Railway was planned way back in 1889 to connect Dallas all the way to Albuquerque. They graded a…

In 1846 a doctor from Tennessee named James Azle Steward rode into a clearing and found a log cabin built by a Dutchman named Rumsfeldt. He liked what he saw…

On May 24 2011 the sky above Eagle Mountain Lake started spinning. An EF0 tornado formed directly over the water — a waterspout in the middle of North Texas —…

Southwest of Azle, in what was once the Slover community, stands a one room log cabin with a long resume. Samuel Slover and his family came to Parker County from Arkansas in the middle of the eighteen fifties, a little…

Azle grew up along Ash Creek, and the ash trees out here have a modern story. A ten year old nature fan snapped a picture of a shiny green beetle in his own driveway near Eagle Mountain Lake. A Texas Parks and Wildlife…

You're driving past Azle, where the story of education began in the 1850s. Local legend says J.G. Reynolds started the very first school, holding classes in log cabins and even the Ash Creek Baptist Church. Imagine…

You're driving near Azle, Texas, and this town owes its name to a young doctor. In 1846, Dr. James Azle Steward moved into a cabin here. When the post office was established in 1881, the town was first named O'Bar. But…

Azle's golf course is called Cross Timbers, and that name is older than any town around here. The Cross Timbers are long strips of scrubby oak forest that run from Oklahoma down into Central Texas, right through this…

A family went out hunting arrowheads along Walnut Creek in 2017 and found something about 110 million years older than they expected. Pressed into the creekbed…

Starting in November 2013 the ground beneath Azle started shaking and it did not stop for 84 days. Twenty-seven earthquakes rattled windows cracked foundations…

The first settler in Azle who wanted a proper plank home instead of a log cabin faced a simple problem — the nearest lumber was in Houston 280 miles away. So…

When the first settlers arrived in 1846 they planted themselves right on the contested line between Parker and Tarrant Counties — which also happened to be the…

Cottondale sits nestled in the rolling hills of Wise County, where the Eastern Cross Timbers transitions into prairie. This North Texas region is characterized by its mix of post oak and blackjack oak forests,…

This town could not make up its mind what to call itself. First it was Elizabeth Town and that did not stick. Then the store owner got it renamed Mooresville…

For nearly a century the people of Azle lived by candlelight and kerosene lamps while Fort Worth glowed with electric light just 23 miles down the road. Think…

Agriculture was the mainstay of Azle's economy, with several crops grown including wheat, corn, peanuts, sorghum, and cotton. Fruits such as watermelons, cantaloupes, peaches, plums, and pears were also produced. Dairy…

If you were in Azle between 2013 and 2015, you might have felt the ground shake. Not from a big California-style earthquake, but from a series of small, unsettling tremors. The town experienced a 'swarm' of hundreds of…

The swarm of earthquakes that shook Azle from 2013 to 2015 wasn't just a strange event; it was a real-world lesson in geology and physics. Scientists from Southern Methodist University investigated and linked the quakes…

In 1942 the United States Marines bought 2931 acres of ranchland on Eagle Mountain Lake for a purpose that sounds almost unbelievable now — training pilots to…

You're driving past "Machine Gun" Kelley. During the Prohibition Era, organized crime increased. Big-name gangsters like Al Capone ruled the streets while public enemies such as Bonnie and Clyde swept across the…

Look towards the water of Eagle Mountain Lake, and you’re looking at the single biggest thing that shaped modern Azle. Before 1932, this was just the valley of the West Fork of the Trinity River. Azle was a small,…

Azle, Texas is located near several creeks, including Ash Creek, Silver Creek, and Walnut Creek, which played a role in the early settlement of the area. The town is also near Eagle Mountain Lake, formed by a dam on the…

You're driving past Cottondale. Area's oldest settlement. Platted by landowner B. F. Banks, who also gave lots for public use named, 1875, for lush growth of cotton planted by John Bridges, blacksmith, to finance a trip…

You're driving through Azle, and right here is the site of the First Methodist Church. It all started back in 1895 when Reverend Will A. Stephens and fifteen members got together to form this congregation. They quickly…

Somewhere in Row 11 of the Cottondale Cemetery, under a small headstone that reads George B. Kelley, 1954, lies George Machine Gun Kelly, one of the most notorious gangsters of the Prohibition era. The misspelled name…

The young man who briefly became the fastest under-18 half-miler on Earth runs his home laps right here at Northwest High School in Justin. In the summer of 2025, Cooper Lutkenhaus, then a 16-year-old rising junior,…

You're driving through North Texas, not far from Justin, where a French revolutionary named Adolphe Gouhenant tried to start a utopian community. He was a follower of Étienne Cabet, a French communist, and in 1848,…

At 124 West Main Street stands a sturdy two-story rock building that has quietly held nearly every role a small town needs. James and Eula Nation built it in 1936, living upstairs while running a general store and gas…

Long before Cooper Lutkenhaus was rewriting record books at Northwest High School, another future pro was throwing on these same fields: Dustin May, born in 1997 and a Northwest High graduate right here in Justin. May…

You're driving through Azle, Texas, a town named after the very man who helped build it. James Azle Steward, a physician from Tennessee, arrived here before 1860. He and his wife were early settlers in this region.…

You're driving past Azle, Texas, where a post office served as more than just a place to mail letters. Originally called O'Bar, the post office opened way back in 1881. It moved to this Main Street location in 1916 and…

You're driving through Denton County, just northwest of Grapevine Lake, and you're passing through a place that started as a dream from across the ocean. Back in 1848, a group of French colonists arrived, establishing…

You're driving through Azle, a town named for Dr. Azle Stewart, who donated the land for this church. Back in the 1880s, services were held under a brush arbor. The congregation officially organized in 1890 and built…

On April twenty ninth, nineteen fifty seven, a carload of lawmen spotted two men near Lake Worth. One was Gene Paul Norris, an Oklahoma and Texas bandit and the brother of a onetime Public Enemy Number One. Texas Ranger…

You're driving through Springtown, Texas, a place named for the many springs that first drew Joseph Ward to this spot back in 1856. He settled here on a creek, and three years later, he designed the town square. He…

Just next door to Justin is a landmark you absolutely cannot miss: the colossal Texas Motor Speedway. When it opened for its first season of racing in 1997, it permanently changed this corner of Denton County. Before…

Texas Motor Speedway, a few miles east of Justin, is a piece of civil engineering built for one thing: extreme speed. The track is a mile-and-a-half quad-oval, and the most critical feature is the banking in the turns.…

Here's a piece of Texas confusion that turned into an identity. The town of Justin is not named for Justin Boots - it's named for Justin Sherman, a chief engineer with the Santa Fe, back when the community applied for a…

You're driving through Decatur, and you might just be passing the site of one of Texas's oldest public events! It started as informal gatherings for Confederate veterans in the 1860s and 70s. By 1881, it grew into a…

The city's name, Justin, is not related to the Justin Boot Company as commonly believed. Instead, it was named in honor of Justin Sherman, a chief engineer with the Santa Fe Railroad. In January 1887, the community…

You're driving near Decatur, and you're passing the site of the old Wise County Poor Farm. From 1885 to 1962, this 320-acre farm was home to dependent citizens and county convicts who worked out their fines. The first…

You're driving through Haslet, a town born from the railroad. In 1883, the Gulf, Colorado and Santa Fe Railway pushed its tracks through this part of Tarrant County. A community soon followed, named for the hometown of…

Woody Creek BBQ started as a family food operation on private property beside the actual Woody Creek, on the stretch between Springtown and Weatherford. It moved into a permanent building on the Springtown square in…

In 1884, the same year Springtown officially incorporated, this small frontier community did something ambitious: it opened a school of its own. The Springtown Male and Female Institute took in students from across the…

The road you're likely driving on right now, State Highway 199, is the single most important piece of engineering in modern Springtown. For decades, this was just a two-lane country road connecting Fort Worth to…

For twenty years the settlers of Springtown slept with one eye open. The Comanche considered this land theirs and they were not subtle about making the point.…

When the Civil War called the Texas Rangers east to fight for the Confederacy they left behind an unguarded frontier. The Comanche knew it immediately. They…

Springtown's history began with Joseph Ward, an early settler who named the community Littleton's Springs. In the mid-1870s, the name was changed to Springtown. The town's post office opened in 1875, and Springtown was…

You're driving through Tarrant County, not far from where William M. Rice spent his final years. Rice first arrived in Texas way back in 1834, settling near Nacogdoches. He was involved in frontier defense and even…

You're driving past Ash Creek Baptist Church, a place with a story that starts way back in 1871. Reverend J.C. Powers organized this church with 48 charter members, and let me tell you, it was a rougher time. Powers…

Picture a man from New Jersey standing at the edge of a creek in 1856 watching water bubble up from dozens of natural springs. Captain Joseph Ward had found…

For one strange glorious decade a tiny frontier town became the smartest place in Northwest Texas. Starting in 1884 the Springtown Male and Female Institute…

By 1877 Springtown had a hotel two general stores two blacksmith shops and three cotton gins — not bad for a settlement in the middle of Comanche country. The…

Before Azle had a post office before it even had its final name a group of settlers gathered in 1872 and organized a church. Ash Creek Baptist Church became…

You're driving past the home of Dr. George and Ruth Jones, built in 1915. Dr. Jones, a respected physician, and Ruth, a dedicated teacher and missionary, were pillars of the Springtown community. Their two-story house,…

You're driving through Springtown, and right here on the Square is a place that's been the heart of this community since the 1930s: the Springtown Tabernacle. It started with a building in 1906 that housed city hall and…

You're driving past Springtown, a place born from water. Captain Joseph Ward settled here in 1856, drawn by abundant springs. He laid out the town square in 1859, initially naming it Littleton's Springs. The town got…

You're driving past Ash Creek Cemetery, the final resting place for many of Azle's earliest residents. Look for the graves of Dave Morrison and W. P. Gregg, both dying tragically in <say-as interpret-as="date"…

One of the great underdog stories in golf came out of Azle. Robert Landers was a cattle and dairy farmer with no professional background who, at around fifty years old, qualified for the Senior PGA Tour. He had…

Azle carries a doctor's middle name, and he more or less paid for the honor. Dr. James Azle Steward, a Tennessee-born physician, settled in this area in the 1840s. When the community needed a townsite, Steward donated…

You're driving past Perrin Log Cabin. William Perrin and his wife, Charlotte, along with two other families, left Rock Castle, Kentucky in the fall of 1853, arriving forty days later in the Peters Colony near Dallas.…

In the depths of the Great Depression when most towns could barely keep the lights on Springtown got a gift that would outlast generations. In 1936 young men…

Nobody expected what came bubbling out of the ground beneath Springtown's school district. When oil was discovered on school land the money changed everything…

Every third Saturday in September for more than 35 years the town square in Springtown transforms into something straight out of 1885. A parade rolls down the…

You're cruising past the Eureka Masonic Lodge in Springtown, a building that's been a cornerstone of this town since 1897. Imagine this: the Masons met upstairs, while downstairs, this very building housed all sorts of…

You're driving past the Smith-Frazier Cemetery, a place that began as a burial ground for Azle's black community. In 1886, businessman J.J. Jarvis deeded this land for that purpose, though some graves were already here.…

In 1884, the same year Springtown incorporated as a town, it opened a college-level school. The Springtown Male and Female Institute, also known as College Hill Institute, served the educational needs of northern Parker…

When the first church in Azle was organized in 1872, this was still the dangerous edge of the frontier. As local history tells it, the early preacher kept a six-shooter on each side of his Bible while he delivered the…

The county Springtown calls home carries a name tangled up in one of the most dramatic stories in Texas history. Parker County was named for Isaac Parker whose…

Springtown had no railroad in 1877. No rail connection, no shipping depot, none of the infrastructure that usually built Texas towns in this era. And yet by that year it had a hotel, a school, two general stores, two…

The Springtown Sentinel began publication in 1881, just a few years after the community had established itself as a trade center. On the Texas frontier, a local newspaper was more than a convenience. It was a signal…

On Springtown's town square there was once a building with no walls. Just a roof and open sides, called a tabernacle, and it served as the community's main gathering space in the early twentieth century. Church…

You're driving past the Hoggard-Reynolds Cemetery, a final resting place that tells the story of early Azle. Oral history says pioneer Sarah Hoggard donated this land after the Civil War for an African American child…

You're driving past Springtown Cemetery, a resting place that's been here longer than the town itself. This ground was first used by pioneer settlers even before Springtown was officially founded. The earliest stone you…

Springtown began where a settler found reliable water. Joseph Ward settled beside a spring-fed creek in 1856, and when he laid out the town square in 1859, the settlement was called Littleton's Springs, for the springs…

Early settlers reportedly found about twenty-five active springs in and around the Springtown area, grouped into three main clusters. That density of natural water sources was unusual enough to define the place…

Springtown was not named by a railroad company or a land developer. It grew where roughly two dozen natural springs brought hidden groundwater to the surface, and the science behind those springs is hydrogeology, the…

Howell's is a long-running local favorite in Springtown, the kind of place Parker County regulars know and visitors discover. A reliable stop for a sit-down meal in a small town with limited restaurant options.

You're driving past the site of Decatur's First Baptist Church. Organized in 1856, it first met in a log cabin. The church has a long history of community involvement, including working with Northwest Texas Baptist…

You are driving through the heart of one of the most ambitious development projects in American history. In the late 1980s, this entire area north of Fort Worth was mostly open ranch land. Then, a group of visionaries,…

Look around at the rivers of trucks and the endless stacks of shipping containers. You're witnessing a marvel of modern engineering and logistics: the intermodal facility. The BNSF terminal here in Haslet is a city unto…

You're driving through North Texas, and right here, in what is now Wise County, you might be passing near Paradise. That's where Mansell Walter Matthews, a preacher, doctor, and legislator, spent the last years of his…

Paradise put 6 players on the statewide leaderboards of the 2026 Texas high school baseball playoffs. Camden Walker had 20 stolen bases (1st in the state), 18 hits (6th in the state), and 17 runs (4th in the state).…

The history of Haslet, Texas, began around 1880 when the area was first settled. However, it wasn't until 1883 that a distinct community likely formed, following the extension of the Gulf, Colorado and Santa Fe Railway…

Paradise, TX placed on the Texas high school baseball PLAYOFF HITS leaderboard for the 2026 postseason: Carter Mara (19 hits, #3 in TX); Camden Walker (18 hits, #6 in TX); Madden Taylor (17 hits, #8 in TX); Cash Watson…

You're driving past the First Christian Church of Paradise. Members held services in 'Old Town' in the late 1800s, but moved here when the railroad arrived. Merchant M. D. Cansler, school superintendent S. L. Atkins,…

The handsome old building at 116 North Jackson Avenue has worn three lives. It began in 1905 as Pennington College, a private preparatory school and high-school equivalent that Justin's citizens, led by Dr. Thomas…

You're driving past the site of Old Town Paradise, a community that literally moved! Settled in 1858 and initially called Eldorado, this town grew around a central square and a community well. It even got a post office…

You're driving through Justin, a town named for a railroad engineer, but its story starts much earlier. This land was once home to Native American tribes. Then, in 1841, a pioneer named John B. Denton was killed in…

You're driving through Decatur, and right here is a spot with a claim to fame in higher education. In 1898, Decatur Baptist College was planned as the world's very first institution designed from the ground up as a…

You're driving past the site of the Smith Farmstead, a glimpse into 19th-century Texas life. Settlers began arriving in this area around 1849, with James and Sarah Hoggard among them. Their daughter, Nancy Jane, married…