Skip to content

Burleson, Texas

Everything Burleson is known for

4 songs mention this city 5 artists from here

RoadyGoat plays music like this when you drive through Burleson. It's free on iPhone, and full songs play through Apple Music.

Sign up for the free newsletter Get the iPhone app

Burleson, Texas, a city in North Texas, is home to a notable collection of musical talent. Grammy Award winning pop artist Kelly Clarkson graduated from Burleson High School. Country music is also well-represented, with the Casey Donahew Band, whose frontman Casey Donahew was born and raised in Burleson and still lives there today. Three of their songs, "running out of time," "Country Song," and "Feels This Right," mention Burleson.

The country duo The Janedear Girls also hails from Burleson.

Music in Burleson

Songs About Burleson

Country Song
Casey Donahew
6%
"And a girl from my hometown who tore my world apart"
Feels This Right
Casey Donahew
4%
"Everybody talking 'bout me in this town"
Ohio (Reprise)
Bowling for Soup
4%
"Kelly Clarkson wants you back"
High
Casey Donahew Band
2%
"Fifteen minutes south of the Fort Worth city lights"

Artists From Burleson

K
Kelly Clarkson
pop
C
Casey Donahew
country
C
Casey Donahew Band
country
T
The Janedear Girls
country
W
Wylder Wilson
country

Rivers & Roads in Song near Burleson

Songs written about the waterways and highways that run near Burleson.

Interstate 20 13 songs Chisholm Trail 8 songs Texas State Highway 199 8 songs Brazos River 43 songs Trinity River 11 songs Interstate 45 8 songs

Musical Heritage

Where Kelly Clarkson Found Her Voice RoadyGoat

Before she won the very first season of American Idol in 2002 and became one of the biggest pop voices in the country, Kelly Clarkson was just a kid in Burleson. Born in Fort Worth in 1982, she grew up here in this suburb south of the city, and the story locals love is that her gift was first spotted in a school hallway. As a seventh grader, her singing caught the ear of her school's choir teacher, who pulled her toward formal training, and she went on through the Burleson schools as a standout vocalist. A decade later that voice carried her through a national television contest watched by millions and straight to a number-one debut single. Burleson was a small enough town that a choir teacher could change the course of a career simply by hearing something in a hallway, and the singer who answered that call still gets claimed, proudly, as Burleson's own. (Source: Wikipedia; NBC.)

RoadyGoat →

The Hometown Voice RoadyGoat

1982

Burleson's most famous daughter is the singer Kelly Clarkson, who grew up here before winning the very first season of a national televised singing competition in 2002 and going on to one of the biggest pop careers of her generation. Years later, she said her small-town upbringing was exactly what prepared her for the strangest part of fame, the loss of privacy. In her words: Everyone has something to say, or can be invasive of your privacy, and for whatever reason that calmed me because I grew up in that atmosphere and so I knew I could handle it. She has said she approaches her whole career the way she'd approach the small town she came from.

History of Burleson

The Preacher Who Sold the Land and Got to Name the Town RoadyGoat

You're rolling into a town that exists because a railroad needed dirt and a preacher had it to sell. In 1881 the Missouri, Kansas and Texas line was pushing a route south from Fort Worth toward Hillsboro, and railroad man Grenville M. Dodge bought the depot tract from Reverend Henry C. Renfro, who owned land right here in the northern edge of Johnson County, fourteen miles below Fort Worth. As part of the deal, Renfro got the honor of naming the new stop. He didn't name it after himself. He named it Burleson, after Dr. Rufus C. Burleson, his old teacher and the longtime president of Baylor University, a man best remembered for baptizing Sam Houston. The post office followed in 1882, set up inside a saloon with John L. Dickey as first postmaster. By 1890 about 200 people lived here, and the surrounding farms were shipping cotton, wheat, and cottonseed out on the very rails that gave the town its reason to be. The name on every sign you pass honors a Baylor president who never lived here. (Source: Handbook of Texas.)

RoadyGoat →

From the Pulpit to Free Thought: The Man Behind the Name RoadyGoat

The man who named this town had a stranger story than the town itself. Henry Carty Renfro, born in Tennessee in 1831, came up as a Baptist minister and a former Baylor student, and he organized churches across Johnson and Tarrant counties. Then his reading led him somewhere his church couldn't follow. Renfro started questioning Baptist orthodoxy and the organized church entirely, and in February 1884 he was charged with preaching the doctrine of infidelity and expelled from the ministry. Instead of going quiet, he became a public free-thought lecturer, drawing large crowds across north-central Texas. He didn't have long. In March 1885 he died of pneumonia caught while making a cattle drive from his farm up to Fort Worth, the same kind of drive that defined this country in the trail era. Baptist papers claimed he recanted his liberalism on his deathbed; his family furiously denied it, and the dispute outlived him. Fittingly, his old friend Rufus Burleson, the man this town is named for, preached his funeral to more than a thousand mourners at Bethesda Baptist. (Source: Handbook of Texas.)

RoadyGoat →

The Creek That Is Born in Burleson and Fills a City's Lake RoadyGoat

Most people never notice it, but Burleson is the birthplace of a creek that ends up as drinking water for a city to the north. Village Creek rises right here, its headwaters tucked into northern Johnson County near Heiney Ranch Road and FM 802, then runs a long, roughly northeast course after Shannon Creek joins it inside town. From Burleson it threads through Kennedale and pours into Lake Arlington as that reservoir's main inflow, before finally emptying into the West Fork of the Trinity River. The plumbing matters: Lake Arlington is a working municipal and industrial water-supply lake, and it doubles as a terminal-storage basin in the regional system, so the rain that lands on Burleson's streets and the springs that feed this creek genuinely help fill a city's tap. The whole Village Creek watershed covers roughly 143 square miles across Johnson and Tarrant counties, and engineers watch it closely enough to keep a U.S. Geological Survey stream gauge, station 08048890, measuring the flow right at Burleson. The water under that bridge you just crossed is the start of someone else's faucet.

RoadyGoat →

The Interurban in Burleson

1911

At the turn of the 20th century, the Northern Texas Traction Co. found success with an interurban railway that operated between Fort Worth and Dallas. In 1911, a group began planning a new interurban that would run from Fort Worth to Cleburne by way of Everman, Burleson and Joshua. By that time, Burleson had approximately 700 residents and an active business district, and the city incorporated in 1912. The Fort Worth Southern Traction Co. came to town that year seeking employees and arranged with businessman and community leader Albert H. Loyless to be their local representative. He moved his Loyless-Robbins Pharmacy from a two-story wooden building across the street to a new brick building at this site. The traction company constructed an electrical plant and freight dock behind the building, and the pharmacy, complete with soda fountain and interurban ticket counter, occupied the front of the orange-brick structure. The first public run of the electrical train line came through Burleson on September 1, 1912. From that date until 1931, the train carried people in and out of town, brought goods to them from other cities, and helped make the pharmacy a community center. In 1935, a few years after the interurban ceased its service and motor coaches and automobiles took its place, Loyless, accepting the position of Burleson postmaster, moved his business next door to the post office. Robert Deering bought the former pharmacy building and from it published his newspaper, the Burleson News (later Burleson Dispatcher). The city later purchased the building for use as a visitors center. (2006)

Historical Marker →

Renfro, Henry Carty

1857

Henry Carty Renfro, Baptist minister, was born near Maryville, Blount County, Tennessee, on July 18, 1831, the son of Absalom C. and Levicy (Tipton) Renfro. The family moved to Rock Spring, Walker County, Georgia, before moving to Cass County, Texas, in June 1851. Renfro enrolled at Baylor University at Independence, Washington County, where he studied to become a minister under well-known educators such as Baylor president Rufus C. Burleson and George Washington Baines . In 1857, during a period of disagreement between Burleson and Horace Clark , Renfro was called to become the pastor of the Independence Baptist Church, then one of the most important Baptist churches in Texas. He was the only student ever chosen to fill the position. Continuing bitter divisions between Burleson, Clark, and others in the congregation, however, prompted Renfro to resign the post and return to Cass County. Soon after, he moved to Johnson County, where he conducted revivals and helped to establish the Bethesda Baptist Church, the county's first Baptist congregation. In Johnson County Renfro met Mary Robinson Ray, a recent arrival in Texas from Tennessee, and they were married on November 24, 1859. A son was born in 1860. With the beginning of the Civil War in 1861, Renfro enlisted in Company C of William H. Griffin's Twenty-first Texas Infantry Battalion. Efforts of Rufus C. Burleson eventually led to Renfro's appointment as chaplain of Joseph Speight 's Regiment, Fifteenth Texas Infantry, after Burleson's resignation from the position. Renfro remained with the regiment for the remainder of the war, participating in the battles of Bayou Bourbeau, Vidalia, Mansfield, Pleasant Hill, and Yellow Bayou. In July 1864, while he was with his unit in Louisiana, his wife had a daughter in Johnson County. After returning to Texas, Renfro served as the minister of several Baptist congregations in Johnson and Tarrant counties. He also farmed and traded in land. He sold the property that became the town of Burleson and named the site after his old friend and professor Rufus Burleson. Renfro generally was regarded as one of the most prominent Baptist ministers in Texas. However, he began to question the organized church and Baptist orthodoxy, and his studies resulted in his being charged with "advocating and preaching the doctrine of infidelity." Despite Burleson's request for a delay, Renfro was dismissed from the ministry and the Baptist Church on February 2, 1884. He continued to lecture about free thought to large audiences in north central Texas. He died on March 2, 1885, after contracting pneumonia on a cattle drive from his farm to Fort Worth. His son, Burleson, died of the same disease three days later. Renfro's death was not without controversy, however, as Baptist publications reported that he recanted his conversion to liberalism on his deathbed, a charge vehemently denied by his family and friends. Rufus Burleson preached Renfro's funeral service to over 1,000 persons, and the former minister was buried in the cemetery at Bethesda Baptist Church in Johnson County.

Tsha Handbook →

Renfro-Clark House

1894

Home of heirs of donor of the Burleson townsite. By providing land for the M.K.T. Railroad line, Henry C. Renfro (deceased 1885) won right to name town for his friend, Dr. Rufus Burleson, a pioneer preacher, president of Waco College (1861-86) and Baylor University (1851-61; 1886-97). This was the first house in the Clark addition, and was built in 1894 by Mrs. Henry C. Renfro and her only daughter, Margaret Annette Baker Clark.

Historical Marker →

Burleson, TX

1881

Burleson is on Interstate Highway 35W, U.S. Highway 81, State Highway 174, and Farm roads 731 and 3391, fourteen miles south of Fort Worth in northern Johnson and southern Tarrant counties. Shannon and Village creeks run through the community. The Missouri, Kansas and Texas Railroad runs through the community, and the Gulf, Colorado and Santa Fe runs just to the west. Burleson began when the MKT planned a railroad from Fort Worth to Hillsboro in 1881 and established a depot on the townsite. Grenville M. Dodge, representing the railroad, purchased the land, originally part of the J. W. Henderson survey, from Rev. Henry C. Renfro . As part of the agreement, Renfro was allowed to name the depot and called it Burleson, in honor of Dr. Rufus C. Burleson , his teacher and later president of Baylor University. In 1882 Burleson received a post office located in a saloon, with John L. Dickey as the first postmaster. Soon after it opened, several stores and churches were formed. Burleson was a mile south of an earlier community, Brushy Mound, which was bypassed by the railroad. The first school in the area had been founded at Brushy Mound in 1879. In 1885 a new building was constructed and called Alta Vista College. In 1893 it became Red Oak Academy and was run by the Presbyterian Church . After the school was discontinued the building was moved to Burleson in 1900. The Brushy Mound site is now in the Burleson city limits. In its first fifty years Burleson was a stable community organized around agriculture and livestock raising. By 1890 it had a population of 200, grocers, druggists, a general store, and several cotton gin-gristmills. Ten years later the community had a newspaper, the Burleson Banner , and an artesian well and waterworks that supplied water to area homes and businesses. In 1899 Burleson shipped 2,000 bales of cotton, eighty cars of wheat and oats, and thirty cars of cottonseed. The population in Burleson was 368 in 1904 but dropped by the 1920s to 241, before beginning a slow climb to 573 in 1940. The community was incorporated before 1930. In 1912 the North Texas Traction Company began service on its Interurban line between Cleburne and Fort Worth with a stop in Burleson. In 1913 Burleson received its first electricity, powered by wires laid for the Interurban, and in 1921 Lone Star Gas began to provide gas service to Burleson. The Interurban service to Burleson made the town more accessible to the outside world. In 1924 State Highway 21 was built from Fort Worth to Alvarado through Burleson. As Burleson grew land was annexed to provide room for new buildings. Before World War II the Cumming-Clark addition was built, and after the war the Mound, Tarrant, Crestmoor, and Montclair additions were annexed. The population began to grow more rapidly. From 1940 to 1950 it rose 28 percent, from 573 to 795, but in the next decade the population mushroomed from 795 in 1950 to 2,345 in 1960, as Burleson became a suburb of Fort Worth. The community began to rely less on agriculture and more on business and industry. It supported thirty businesses in the 1930s, and sixty-two in the 1960s. In 1950 Burleson had seven manufacturers, including three feed companies and a brass manufacturer. By 1980 the population of 11,734 supported 196 businesses. Fourteen manufacturers constructed a variety of items, including glass, mobile homes, camper tops, and metal storage sheds. In 1990 three newspapers, the Burleson Star (established 1965), the Joshua Tribune (established 1970), and the Burleson Star Review (established 1969), were published in Burleson, in addition to technical, trade, and church journals. In 1990 the population of Burleson was 16,113. In 2000 the population grew to 20,976. The Burleson Library and a museum were located in the Victorian home of the Clark and Renfro families, built in 1893.

Tsha Handbook →

Marystown, TX

1853

Marystown was ten miles north of Cleburne in northern Johnson County. The first Anglo-American settlers in the area, the Reverend J. S. Wilshire and his family, arrived and established a farm in 1853, and other settlers followed soon after, drawn by the plentiful timber and constant water of Quil Miller Creek. The community, however, was not organized until after the Civil War , when Thomas W. Hollingsworth, an area landowner, established a flour mill and a mercantile business. Other settlers arrived and additional businesses opened. Hollingsworth called the developing community Marysville, in honor of his wife, Mary, and applied for a post office under that name, but a Marysville post office already existed in the state, so the settlement became Marystown. The Marystown post office operated from 1874 to 1901. By 1879 the community had 100 residents, two grocery stores, a general merchandise store, a cotton gin, a gristmill, a flour mill, a blacksmith shop, a school, and two churches, one of them a community church built by Hollingsworth. In 1881 the railroad bypassed Marystown, and residents moved to the nearby rail town of Burleson. By the early 1890s only a general merchandise store, a flour mill, a cotton gin, and the post office remained open in Marystown. For the 1896–97 school year, one teacher taught eighty-seven pupils. By 1900–01 the school had 117 students and two teachers. Marystown ceased to exist as an organized community sometime thereafter.

Tsha Handbook →

Bethesda Community

1844

The Bethesda Community traces its history to 1853, when pioneer farmer David R. Jackson donated land for a community cemetery. Unmarked graves date to 1844, and the earliest marked burials are from 1856. Bethesda Baptist Church was organized on August 13, 1855. It was the First Baptist Church in the county and was called Cross Timbers Bethesda Baptist Church. Services were held in a log cabin. Initially served by circuit riding ministers, the church's first pastor was William Robinson. A Sunday School was organized in 1887. Services were held monthly until 1944, when weekly meetings were begun. After the original log cabin church burned in 1878, a new wooden structure was built. A brick sanctuary was constructed in 1959, and became a fellowship hall in 1980 when a new facility was completed. A community school was organized in 1855. Located at the head of Crill Miller Creek, it was called Crill Miller School. In 1918 it was consolidated with the Post Oak and Village Creek Schools to form Bethesda School. A four-room schoolhouse was built and served as a center for many community activities. Bethesda School was incorporated into the Burleson Independent School District in 1950.

Historical Marker → · 4.5 mi away

Things to Do in Burleson

food 15.7 mi away
Joe T. Garcia's

Joe T opened his little family restaurant behind the packing plant in the Fort Worth Stockyards in 1935. There was no menu. His wife Jessie served whatever she…
historical 17.0 mi away
Fort Worth Stockyards

Daily cattle drives down the street. Honky-tonks and rodeos in the old West.
historical 17.0 mi away
Billy Bob's Texas

Billy Bob's opened in 1981 in an old cattle barn in the Fort Worth Stockyards and at one hundred twenty-seven thousand square feet it is the largest honky-tonk…
spooky 18.0 mi away
Lake Worth Monster

In 1969 dozens of witnesses reported a half-man half-goat creature prowling the shores of Lake Worth. Police investigated. The monster was never caught.

Everything Near Burleson

1178 stories, landmarks & places within ~20 miles — the nearest 200 are listed here — the same local lore RoadyGoat plays as you drive through.

  • Where Kelly Clarkson Found Her Voice

    Before she won the very first season of American Idol in 2002 and became one of the biggest pop voices in the country, Kelly Clarkson was just a kid in Burleson. Born in Fort Worth in 1982, she grew up here in this…

  • The Preacher Who Sold the Land and Got to Name the Town

    You're rolling into a town that exists because a railroad needed dirt and a preacher had it to sell. In 1881 the Missouri, Kansas and Texas line was pushing a route south from Fort Worth toward Hillsboro, and railroad…

  • From the Pulpit to Free Thought: The Man Behind the Name

    The man who named this town had a stranger story than the town itself. Henry Carty Renfro, born in Tennessee in 1831, came up as a Baptist minister and a former Baylor student, and he organized churches across Johnson…

  • The Creek That Is Born in Burleson and Fills a City's Lake

    Most people never notice it, but Burleson is the birthplace of a creek that ends up as drinking water for a city to the north. Village Creek rises right here, its headwaters tucked into northern Johnson County near…

  • The Hometown Voice

    Burleson's most famous daughter is the singer Kelly Clarkson, who grew up here before winning the very first season of a national televised singing competition in 2002 and going on to one of the biggest pop careers of…

  • The 1987 Tornado

    Burleson sits in tornado country, on the southern flank of the stretch of North Texas where spring storms spin up hard and fast, and the town has the scars to prove it. The most destructive twister on Burleson's record…

  • The Restored Rail Cars in the Heart of Old Town

    The town was born from a railroad, so it's fitting that two vintage rail cars now sit restored at its center. Beside Mayor Vera Calvin Plaza in Old Town, the Burleson Visitors Center and Museum keeps a restored #330…

  • Barbecue, Beer, and a Rooftop in Old Town

    If you want to actually sit down in Old Town rather than just drive through it, Old Texas Brewing Company at 112 West Ellison Street is the anchor. A local family opened it in 2013 with the straightforward goal of…

  • The Interurban in Burleson · 0.1 mi · Historical Marker

    At the turn of the 20th century, the Northern Texas Traction Co. found success with an interurban railway that operated between Fort Worth and Dallas. In 1911, a group began planning a new interurban that would run from…

  • The Preacher Who Lost His Faith · 0.2 mi

    The Baptist minister who gave Burleson its name died cut off from the very church he served. Henry Renfro trained at Baylor under Rufus Burleson, served as a chaplain in the war between the states, and became a…

  • The Town Named From a Saloon · 0.2 mi

    Burleson exists because of a railroad deal. In 1881 a railroad planned a line running from Fort Worth toward Hillsboro, and Reverend Henry Renfro sold his land for the right of way on one condition: that he be allowed…

  • The House the Donor's Family Built · 0.2 mi

    At 128 North Clark Street stands a house that ties directly back to the man who named the town. After Henry C. Renfro died in 1885, his widow and their daughter, Margaret Annette Baker Clark, built this home in 1894,…

Show all 200 nearby places
  • Renfro-Clark House · 0.2 mi · Historical Marker

    Home of heirs of donor of the Burleson townsite. By providing land for the M.K.T. Railroad line, Henry C. Renfro (deceased 1885) won right to name town for his friend, Dr. Rufus Burleson, a pioneer preacher, president…

  • The Interurban and the Night the Lights Came On · 0.3 mi

    In 1912 an electric railway called the Interurban opened between Fort Worth and Cleburne, and Burleson was a stop on the line. On opening day, September first, the cars carried twelve hundred passengers. The line did…

  • From Ice Cream to Coffins · 0.3 mi

    In Old Town Burleson, parked beside the visitors center, sits a genuine piece of that vanished railway: Interurban express car number three thirty, built around 1902 and described by the city as the oldest rail car of…

  • A Stripe of Forest Across the Prairie · 0.3 mi

    Burleson sits inside a band of woods called the Eastern Cross Timbers, a narrow north-south strip of post oak and blackjack oak that cuts straight through the open prairie. Here is the science of it: those trees are not…

  • Burgers in Old Town · 0.3 mi

    If you are passing through and you are hungry, Old Town Burleson is where to stop. In the heart of the historic district, in a two-story building with a Texas flag painted across the roof, Grump's Burgers has become a…

  • The 1895 Opera House Still Standing in Old Town · 0.5 mi

    When you reach Old Town Burleson, you're standing in the original heart of the railroad village, and its oldest showpiece is the Burleson Opera House, built in 1895. Small-town opera houses like this one weren't grand…

  • American Idol's Hometown · 1.0 mi

    In 2002, a television show called 'American Idol' became a national phenomenon, and it put Burleson, Texas, on the map. The winner was a 20-year-old from right here named Kelly Clarkson. Before she was a global…

  • The Ghost of the Interurban · 1.0 mi

    Imagine this: it's 1915, and you want to get from Burleson to Fort Worth. You don't take a car. You walk to a stop in the middle of town and board a sleek electric railcar. This was the Interurban. The Fort Worth…

  • The Electric Spine of the Prairie · 1.0 mi

    In 1912, a remarkable piece of engineering cut through Burleson: the Interurban. This wasn't just a train; it was a high-speed electric railway. The Fort Worth Southern Traction Company built a 30-mile line from Fort…

  • Burleson, TX · 1.0 mi

    Burleson's history is deeply intertwined with the Missouri-Kansas-Texas Railroad, known as 'the Katy'. In 1880, the railroad needed a midway depot between Fort Worth and Alvarado, leading to the purchase of land from…

  • The President's Man from Burleson · 1.0 mi

    Long before Burleson was known for pop stars, it produced a major figure in national politics. Robert B. Anderson was born here in 1910 and grew up in the world of cotton farms and small-town Texas life. After getting a…

  • The Heart of Old Town · 1.0 mi

    The heart of Burleson wasn't a courthouse square, it was a railroad. When the Missouri-Kansas-Texas laid its line from Fort Worth toward Hillsboro in 1881, Grenville Dodge bought the land for the company and put a depot…

  • Site of Red Oak Academy · 1.2 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving past the site of Red Oak Academy, an early Texas college founded back in 1879. Originally known as Brushy Mound, it was renamed Alta Vista College in 1885. In 1893, the Presbyterian church took over,…

  • Renfro, Henry Carty · 1.8 mi · Tsha Handbook

    Henry Carty Renfro, Baptist minister, was born near Maryville, Blount County, Tennessee, on July 18, 1831, the son of Absalom C. and Levicy (Tipton) Renfro. The family moved to Rock Spring, Walker County, Georgia,…

  • Burleson, TX · 1.8 mi · Tsha Handbook

    Burleson is on Interstate Highway 35W, U.S. Highway 81, State Highway 174, and Farm roads 731 and 3391, fourteen miles south of Fort Worth in northern Johnson and southern Tarrant counties. Shannon and Village creeks…

  • Marystown, TX · 1.8 mi · Tsha Handbook

    Marystown was ten miles north of Cleburne in northern Johnson County. The first Anglo-American settlers in the area, the Reverend J. S. Wilshire and his family, arrived and established a farm in 1853, and other settlers…

  • Carroll, James Milton · 1.8 mi · Tsha Handbook

    You're driving through Burleson County, Texas, near where James Milton Carroll settled with his family in 1858. He was orphaned young, but went on to Baylor University, pastored churches across Texas, and founded San…

  • The 1877 Farmhouse That Became an Art Colony · 2.2 mi

    At 405 West County Road 714 sits a homestead older than the town of Burleson's incorporation, now reborn as a place to make art. The centerpiece is the Russell-Boren house, built in 1877, four years before the railroad…

  • Prairie Springs Cemetery · 2.2 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving past Prairie Springs Cemetery, established way back in 1857. It was recognized as a Historic Texas Cemetery in 2004.

  • Named for the Man Who Ran the Trains · 3.3 mi

    The town you're rolling through wears the name of a railroad man who almost certainly never lived here. Pioneers had been farming the Deer Creek bottoms since about 1848, but the settlement only became a town when the…

  • The Foundry Where Texas Bronze Was Born · 3.3 mi

    On the edge of this dairy-and-rail town, a sculptor built one of the most important bronze foundries in Texas largely with his own hands. Harry Geffert, who ran the sculpture department at Texas Christian University,…

  • Milk, Cattle, and a Line to Fort Worth · 3.3 mi

    For its first half-century Crowley lived and breathed off two things: the rail line running through the middle of it and the dairy cows grazing the land around it. With Fort Worth only fifteen miles up the track, the…

  • A Few Hundred People, a National Bond Record · 3.3 mi

    During World War II this tiny dairy town pulled off something that would impress a city ten times its size. Crowley set a per capita record for buying United States Defense Bonds, the savings bonds Americans purchased…

  • The Gas Monkey Wrench Was a Crowley Kid · 3.3 mi

    If you ever watched the bearded mechanic quietly building the cars on Discovery Channel's Fast N' Loud, you were watching a Crowley native. Aaron Kaufman was born in Crowley in 1982 and grew into a self-taught…

  • Two Hollywood Careers Out of One Small Town · 3.3 mi

    For a town that spent most of its life shipping milk and cattle, Crowley has put a surprising number of faces on screens. Kara Killmer, born in Crowley, became a familiar television presence as paramedic Sylvie Brett on…

  • The Twister on Worfield and Sharondale · 3.3 mi

    Crowley sits in one of the most tornado-prone corners of one of the most tornado-prone states, and in 2008 a twister proved it on two ordinary residential streets. A confirmed EF-2 tornado, with estimated winds around…

  • Crowley, TX · 3.3 mi · Tsha Handbook

    You're driving through Crowley, Texas, a town that owes its existence to the railroad. Back in the late 1800s, pioneers were farming near Deer Creek, but it wasn't until the Gulf, Colorado and Santa Fe Railway came…

  • The Graveyard That Was Here Before the Town · 3.4 mi

    At 300 North Hampton Road sits the oldest piece of this community, older than the name Crowley itself. The Crowley Cemetery began as the Deer Creek Cemetery, serving the farm families who had been settling these creek…

  • Burgers in the Old General Store · 3.4 mi

    The building at 101 North Magnolia has been feeding and supplying this town for well over a century. It first opened in 1887 as the Hays Brothers General Store and Post Office, the place where Crowley folks bought their…

  • Crowley Cemetery · 3.4 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving past the Crowley Cemetery, originally known as Deer Creek Cemetery. It served early settlers who arrived around 1848. The name changed to Crowley Cemetery around 1880, after the nearby settlement was…

  • Crowley, TX · 3.5 mi

    In the mid-19th century, the area around Deer Creek saw the arrival of pioneers who began farming. The settlement shifted westward to where downtown stands today, following the construction of pens and tracks by the…

  • First Presbyterian Church of Crowley · 3.6 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving through Crowley, and right here is the site of the First Presbyterian Church. This congregation started way back in 1895, with simple brush arbor meetings and a Union Sunday School. They were actually one…

  • Deer Creek rolled a mile west · 4.0 mi

    Imagine getting news that a new superhighway is being built, but it's going to bypass your town by a mile. That's exactly what happened here in the mid-1880s, but with a railroad. The original settlement, a farming…

  • Aligned to the Tracks, Not the Compass · 4.0 mi

    The straight, unwavering line of the railroad tracks cutting through Crowley isn't an accident; it's a monument to 19th-century engineering. When the Gulf, Colorado and Santa Fe Railway planned its route in the 1880s,…

  • Texas HS Baseball Leaders 2026: Crowley (Crowley) · 4.1 mi

    Crowley (Crowley, TX) placed on the 6A Texas high school baseball stat leaderboards for the 2026 season: Spencer Abram (0.441 avg).

  • From Crowley High to the Super Bowl Line · 4.1 mi

    Long before the big contract and the Super Bowl rings, Milton Williams was a defensive lineman terrorizing quarterbacks for Crowley High School. Born in 1999, Williams came up through the Crowley schools and earned…

  • The Linebacker Who Faked a Punt to the Super Bowl · 4.1 mi

    Another Crowley High football product made it all the way to two Super Bowl titles. Gary Reasons, born in 1962, racked up an astonishing thirteen varsity letters at Crowley High School before going on to Northwestern…

  • Cross Timber, TX · 4.1 mi · Tsha Handbook

    You're driving through Johnson County, near the edge of the western Cross Timbers forest. Right here, a community called Cross Timbers sprang up around 1853. It was a bustling place by the late 1800s, with a post…

  • First Baptist Church of Crowley · 4.2 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving past the site of the First Baptist Church of Crowley, a congregation that started small in a rural setting way back in 1896. It was admitted into the Tarrant County Baptist Association that same year,…

  • The First Baptist Church in the County, and the Graveyard Beside It · 4.5 mi

    Out in the countryside between Burleson and Alvarado lies Bethesda, older than the town of Burleson itself and central to its founding family's story. The community traces to 1853, when pioneer farmer David R. Jackson…

  • Bethesda Community · 4.5 mi · Historical Marker

    The Bethesda Community traces its history to 1853, when pioneer farmer David R. Jackson donated land for a community cemetery. Unmarked graves date to 1844, and the earliest marked burials are from 1856. Bethesda…

  • Marystown Cemetery · 5.5 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving past Marystown Cemetery, a final resting place for many of Johnson County's earliest settlers. Families began moving into this area in the 1850s, drawn by the springs and trees near Quil Miller Creek.…

  • Rendon, TX · 5.6 mi · Tsha Handbook

    You're driving through Rendon, Texas, a community that started as a simple crossroads. In 1891, a post office opened, named after Joaquin Rendon, the original land grant holder. By the mid-1890s, this tiny settlement…

  • Barron Field · 5.9 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving past the site of Barron Field, one of three World War I flight training centers that sprang up around Fort Worth. This place, originally Taliaferro Field Number Two, opened in November 1917. It first…

  • 2024 UIL 6A Division 1 Football State Champions · 6.1 mi

    North Crowley High School (Fort Worth, TX): Most recent: 50-21 over Austin Westlake · 2024 6A Division 1 final.

  • Deputy Clifton Taylor Memorial Highway · 6.1 mi · Historical Marker

    Honors Johnson County Sheriff's Deputy Clifton Leigh Taylor, killed in the line of duty April 23, 2011, while responding to a domestic disturbance near Venus, Texas. The honorary segment covers Interstate 35 West from…

  • Union Hill Presbyterian Church and Cemetery · 6.1 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving past Union Hill, a community that started in the early 1850s, becoming a cotton farming hub by the 1870s. In 1879, a Presbyterian congregation formed here, building this church in 1880. Just a couple…

  • Methodism in Joshua · 6.3 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving through Joshua, Texas, a town that really got its start in 1881 when the railroad came through. But Methodists here were already gathering before that, worshiping in nearby Caddo Grove and Marystown. In…

  • The Town That Said 'No' to Fort Worth · 6.4 mi

    By the mid-1940s Fort Worth was booming and pushing its city limits outward in every direction, and the little settlement on its southern edge could see what was coming. Everman had been here since 1904, when the…

  • Everman, TX · 6.4 mi

    Everman was named after John Wesley Everman, the head of the surveying party that platted the town site. A native of Philadelphia, he came to Texas as an engineer for the IGN Railroad and eventually became the general…

  • Everman, TX · 6.4 mi · Tsha Handbook

    You're driving through Everman, a community that owes its early growth to a World War I flight school. Right here, in 1917, Barron Field was established, serving as a crucial training ground for both Canadian and…

  • Deputy Clifton Taylor Memorial Highway · 6.4 mi · Historical Marker

    Interstate Thirty Five West in Johnson County, from US Sixty Seven in Alvarado up to East Hidden Creek Parkway in Burleson, is named for Deputy Clifton Taylor of the Johnson County Sheriff's Office. On the twenty third…

  • Miller Brewery + Mrs. Baird's Bakery — Bread and Beer · 6.6 mi · Research

    On this stretch of South Freeway, two of Fort Worth's biggest food operations sit practically next door — the Miller Brewery on the east side of the highway and Mrs. Baird's Bakery a few blocks south. That isn't a…

  • The Chicken-Fried-Steak Diner Locals Swear By · 6.6 mi

    If you want to eat where Joshua actually eats, skip the chains and pull into D's Country Cafe at 115 Conveyor Drive. It's a small, family-run breakfast-and-lunch spot of the kind that holds a Texas town together, the…

  • Joshua, TX · 6.8 mi

    Once a thriving town, Caddo Grove missed out on the railroad boom, leading to the rise of Joshua. The station, originally called 'Caddo Peak', was renamed 'Joshua' after the biblical figure. The town blossomed with the…

  • The Station the Railroad Named After a Bible Story · 6.8 mi

    The town you're rolling through almost wasn't here, and the town that should have been is two miles west, gone. That was Caddo Grove, a thriving little settlement near the Chisholm Trail until the Gulf, Colorado and…

  • When the Whole Town Ran on Cotton and Corn · 6.8 mi

    For its first half-century, Joshua lived and died by what the Santa Fe hauled out of town. The first store opened in 1882 under W. L. West, who doubled as the first postmaster, and the depot beside the tracks turned…

  • The First Mayor, the First Florist, and the Lodge They Left Behind · 6.8 mi

    Joshua stayed an unincorporated farm town for the better part of 70 years before anyone pinned a government on it, and when the town finally organized as a city in the 1950s, the man holding the gavel was Theodore…

  • When an Electric Train Hummed Through Joshua Every Hour · 6.8 mi

    Long before the highway, Joshua had something most small towns only dreamed of: a fast electric train that ran on the hour. On September 1, 1912, the Fort Worth Southern Traction Company opened its interurban line, an…

  • The Sandstone Lookout Above the Cattle Trail · 6.8 mi

    A mile and a half northwest of town, a brown sandstone hill called Caddo Peak rises to about 1,065 feet, and its face is chiseled with inscriptions, some said to date back to 1836. This was a watching place. The Caddo…

  • How One Hard Cap of Rock Built the Town's Best Lookout · 6.8 mi

    Caddo Peak and nearby Brushy Knob aren't mountains; they're survivors. Across most of this part of Johnson County the land rolls in low, gentle swells, but these two hills stand out sharply, Caddo Peak topping out near…

  • Joshua, TX · 6.8 mi · Tsha Handbook

    You're driving through Joshua, Texas, a town born from a railroad's decision. Right here, the Gulf, Colorado and Santa Fe Railway laid its tracks in 1881, bypassing the older community of Caddo Grove just two miles…

  • The Pioneer Graveyard on the Old Chisholm Trail · 6.8 mi

    West of town, out at 6700 FM 1902 north of County Road 910, sits Caddo Cemetery, and it marks one of the few spots where you can still stand on the actual path of the Old Chisholm Trail near Joshua. The cattle road that…

  • Joshua's Own Ran With the Outlaws · 6.8 mi

    Joshua is a small town, but it put a kid on the NASCAR circuit. Blake Mallory was born here in Joshua on March 2, 1980, and like a lot of Texas racers he came up the hard way, on dirt and asphalt long before anyone…

  • Everman Cemetery · 6.9 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving past what's now Everman Cemetery, but it started as the Morris Graveyard. Back in 1882, R.E. Morris buried his wife, Rosa, on their family farm. It was the first interment here. The town itself was first…

  • Rejected as Caddo Peak, renamed Joshua · 7.0 mi

    The railroad tracks cutting through Joshua are the reason there is a Joshua. When the Gulf, Colorado and Santa Fe planned its line from Cleburne up to Fort Worth in 1881, surveyors walked this ground with transits and…

  • Joshua, TX · 7.0 mi

    Joshua's development was significantly influenced by the arrival of the Gulf, Colorado and Santa Fe Railway in 1881, which bypassed Caddo Grove and led to the establishment of a station at the site of what would become…

  • The Joshua Name Game · 7.0 mi

    What's in a name? In Joshua, it's a bit of a local mystery. The area's first community was Caddo Grove, two miles west of here — and it faded fast after the Gulf, Colorado and Santa Fe Railway went around it in 1881 and…

  • Cahill Methodist Church · 7.2 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving through Johnson County, near Alvarado. Look around, and you might imagine a community called Cahill, named for Nancy and Aquilla Cahill, who settled this land back in 1859. Decades later, in 1893, Sarah…

  • Why a Whole Town Roots for the Owls · 7.4 mi

    Pull up to 909 South Broadway and you're at the beating heart of modern Joshua: the high school, home of the Fighting Owls in blue and white. School here goes back a long way; Joshua opened its first one-room…

  • New Hope Baptist Church · 7.6 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving past the site of New Hope Baptist Church, a community that's been gathering for worship for over a century. Organized by Reverend D.F. Smith and fourteen charter members, this congregation held its first…

  • Gibson Cemetery · 7.8 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving through the old Gibson Community, settled by brothers Garrett and James Gibson back in 1853. They donated this land for a cemetery, where the earliest marked grave is for Garrett's infant grandson, James…

  • The Town That Fought the City · 8.1 mi

    Imagine your small, quiet neighborhood is about to be swallowed by a giant city. That was the situation for the residents here at the start of the 1950s. The booming metropolis of Fort Worth was expanding, annexing…

  • Miller Brewing Plant, Fort Worth · 8.2 mi · Local Knowledge

    Pull off near the South Freeway and you can see the Miller plant — three and a half million square feet of brewery sitting on the south side of Fort Worth. The plant has been here since 1966, started by Carling Brewing,…

  • Myers Cemetery · 8.2 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving past the Myers Cemetery near Alvarado, a place that holds stories of family, hardship, and even a shocking crime. Samuel Houston Myers and his wife Martha arrived here in 1851 with their six children.…

  • Hudson Cemetery · 8.6 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving past the Hudson Cemetery, which started with a family tragedy. In 1878, Ary Mae Hudson died, the first person buried on this land. Her twin sister, Ara Bell, was later moved here too. The Hudsons then…

  • When the Ground Itself Was the Business · 8.8 mi

    The little green stretch of Sonora Park doesn't look like the cradle of an industry, but in Kennedale's early days this was the brickyard. By 1886 K.M. Van Zandt, a major Fort Worth banker and civic figure, and E.C.…

  • Dutch Reagan on Interstate Twenty · 8.8 mi

    Interstate Twenty, from the Tarrant and Parker county line east to the eastern city limit of Grand Prairie, became the Ronald Reagan Memorial Highway in two thousand five, the year after his death. Ronald Reagan was…

  • The Fake Trees and Steeples Made Right Here · 9.1 mi

    That cell tower disguised as a pine tree on the highway, or the church steeple that's secretly bristling with antennas, may well have been engineered just outside Kennedale. The company called FWT, short for Fort Worth…

  • The Man Who Gave Away Half His Town · 9.1 mi

    The town you're driving through got its start the way a lot of North Texas towns did: at a hole in the ground that smelled like sulphur. Settlers had gathered around a mineral-water well here since the 1860s or 1870s,…

  • The Little Depot That Burned, Then Came Back · 9.1 mi

    When the Fort Worth & New Orleans Railway came through in 1886, it didn't just drop a depot here. It built three section houses, modest homes for the crews who walked and maintained the track between stops. One of them,…

  • The Plant That Pours Buildings Flat and Stands Them Up · 9.1 mi

    On a 15-acre site in Kennedale sits one of the quieter pioneers of how Texas buildings get made. Speed Fab-Crete traces back to 1951, founded by World War II veteran Dave Bloxom, and renamed Speed Fab-Crete in 1962. Its…

  • Quarter-Mile of Dirt and Noise · 9.1 mi

    Tucked off Hudson Village Creek Road is a slice of pure dirt-track Texas: Kennedale Speedway Park, a quarter-mile clay oval that has been kicking up dust and engine noise since it opened in 1999, originally as Kennedale…

  • Kennedale, TX · 9.1 mi

    The city's name, Kennedale, carries a story of its own. It was named in honor of Oliver S. Kennedy, who played a pivotal role in the area's development. Kennedy not only platted the land but also generously donated…

  • The Fire That Moved a Whole Downtown · 9.1 mi

    For its first couple of decades, Kennedale's heart sat near the old mineral well and the railroad depot, a tidy little central business district with a hotel, a general merchandise store, a drug store, a bank, a lumber…

  • Breakfast With a Side of Racing · 9.2 mi

    If you want to eat where Kennedale actually eats, pull into the Pitt Stop Cafe at 7089 East Kennedale Parkway. It's a small, well-worn diner that leans hard into the town's racing identity, walls decorated with…

  • A Roadhouse Built Inside a Car Museum · 9.2 mi

    At 1170 East Kennedale Parkway sits one of the odder, more fun stops in town: Red's Roadhouse, a barbecue restaurant and live-music hall built inside what is essentially a classic-car museum. The 22,000-square-foot…

  • Ezell-McLeroy Cotton Gin · 9.2 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving past Alvarado, where cotton was once king. Back in 1896, John Ezell saw the boom in Johnson County cotton and built a gin right here. It was a lifesaver for local farmers, processing bales for markets in…

  • Head, A. A. and Susanna · 9.2 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving past the site of a remarkable farm, built by Alanson Asbury and Susanna Head, known fondly as Uncle Ben and Aunt Sukie. Around 1877, they established their home here and transformed about 300 acres into a…

  • First Baptist Church of Kennedale · 9.2 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving past the site of Kennedale's First Baptist Church, a congregation with roots stretching back to the late 1800s. Imagine worship services in a schoolhouse, with baptisms happening in local creeks and a…

  • Bethany Rest Cemetery · 9.3 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving past Bethany Rest Cemetery, a quiet reminder of Alvarado's early settlers. The land here was donated in 1903 by A.A. "Ben" Head and his wife, Sarah, for Bethany Church, originally called Head's Chapel. By…

  • Kennedale Independent School District · 9.3 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving past Kennedale Independent School District. Known for its farming and brick manufacturing, the town of Kennedale was not officially incorporated until 1947. However, the town's citizens recognized early…

  • Kennedale, TX · 9.3 mi · Tsha Handbook

    You're driving through Kennedale, a town that owes its existence to a bit of railroad politics. Back in 1886, Oliver S. Kennedy surveyed this townsite. To get the Southern Pacific Railroad to build a line through here,…

  • Saturday Night Thunder · 9.4 mi

    If you're passing through on a weekend evening between March and October, you might hear a low rumble in the air. That's the sound of Kennedale's most famous landmark: the Kennedale Speedway Park. This quarter-mile,…

  • The Town Built on Clay · 9.4 mi

    For a stretch of the late 1800s, Kennedale ran on clay. The Kennedale Brick Works was up and going by 1886, started by K. M. Van Zandt and E. C. Schneider, and it dug the rich local clay and fired it into brick that the…

  • The Electric Spine · 9.4 mi

    Between 1912 and 1931, Kennedale sat on a technological revolution: the electric interurban railway. Unlike the steam trains that founded the town, the interurban car was sleek, fast and clean, running on dedicated…

  • A Town of Its Own · 9.4 mi

    For sixty years, Kennedale was a loose collection of houses and businesses with no official government. It had a name, though, and a founder behind it: Oliver S. Kennedy, one of three men who bought land around a…

  • Crossroads of the Prairies · 9.5 mi

    Right now, you're in a place that was once one of the most important railroad junctions in Texas. Alvarado is the oldest town in Johnson County—staked out back in 1849 and incorporated in 1878—but what made it boom was…

  • Engineering a Crossroads · 9.5 mi

    Alvarado didn't grow up around the railroad; the railroads came looking for Alvarado. William Balch staked his claim near an old Indian trail in the winter of 1849, and by the summer of 1854 about a hundred families…

  • The Concrete Crossroads · 9.5 mi

    Look at a map of Forest Hill, and you'll see a city framed by concrete. Interstate 20 runs along its northern edge, US 287 - the old Mansfield Highway - cuts across it, and Interstate 35W runs a few miles to the west,…

  • Townes Van Zandt - Dido, Texas · 9.5 mi · Historical Marker

    Townes Van Zandt came from oil money and old Texas family, raised in the Dido area of Tarrant County where ranch land stretched to the horizon. He threw it all away to become a songwriter, and the songs he wrote are…

  • A City by Choice · 9.5 mi

    As you drive through Forest Hill, you're in a city that exists because about a hundred people bothered to vote. By the end of World War II, Fort Worth was booming and pushing out in every direction, and the farms and…

  • Forest Hill, TX · 9.5 mi

    Forest Hill's history began around 1860 when it was known as Brambleton Station and Forest Hill Village. By 1896, the community had its first schools and was established as a suburb of Fort Worth. In 1912, citizens…

  • Alvarado, TX · 9.5 mi

    Alvarado, Texas, the oldest city in Johnson County, has a rich history tied to the Mexican-American War. The community's first sheriff, A. H. Onstoott, named Alvarado after a battle he fought in Alvarado, Veracruz,…

  • When Cowboys Drove the Prairie · 9.5 mi

    Before the railroads, the biggest thing to move through this part of Texas was cattle. The Chisholm Trail, the great highway for longhorn drives, ran north through Johnson County a few miles west of here. From 1867 into…

  • When the Iron Horse Arrived · 9.5 mi

    If you cross the tracks in Forest Hill, you're crossing the line that once tied this place to the world — but it wasn't a steam railroad, and it wasn't 1902. Forest Hill got started around 1860, and went by Brambleton…

  • Arnold, Oliver Perry · 9.5 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving through Cleburne, and just ahead is the site of a man who truly saw the West unfold. Oliver Perry Arnold arrived in Texas way back in 1847, trying his hand at livestock and running a store. He even spent…

  • Forest Hill Cemetery · 9.5 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving past Forest Hill Cemetery, one of Tarrant County's oldest resting places. It's named for its location and served burials long before anyone started keeping records. In 1883, J.W. Chapman deeded this land…

  • The Street Named for a Steam Engine Called Old Betsy · 9.7 mi

    The main drag through Keene is Old Betsy Road, and there really was an Old Betsy. On December 20, 1902, a little steam engine by that name began running a roughly ten-mile route between Cleburne and the community of…

  • Texas HS Baseball Leaders 2026: Wyatt (Fort Worth) · 9.9 mi

    Wyatt (Fort Worth, TX) placed on the 5A Texas high school baseball stat leaderboards for the 2026 season: Jesus Zaldivar (0.481 avg).

  • Southwest Baptist Theological Seminary · 9.9 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving past the historic campus of Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, a major center for Christian education. Chartered in <say-as interpret-as="date" format="y">1908</say-as>, it moved here to Fort…

  • The Town Built on Purpose in the Dead of Winter · 10.0 mi

    Most Texas towns just happened. Keene was planned. In 1892 a committee of Seventh-day Adventists from the Dallas area went looking for land to build a school, settled on roughly 800 acres east of Cleburne, and paid…

  • The First Airplane in Texas Limped Out of Keene · 10.0 mi

    Around 1912 a speed-mad young man named Slats Rogers, born Floyd Rodgers in Georgia and raised here as a teenager, decided he was going to build an airplane. He started the work in Cleburne and finished it in Keene,…

  • How 45,000 Wyoming Dinosaur Bones Ended Up in Keene · 10.0 mi

    Tucked into this small Adventist college town is one of the largest dinosaur fossil collections in the country. For about 25 years, Southwestern Adventist University has sent a summer crew to a private cattle ranch in…

  • From Elm Grove to Keene · 10.0 mi

    The town you're rolling into started under a different name. The first settler in this part of Johnson County was Jeremiah Easterwood, who arrived around 1852 and put up a Methodist meeting house that doubled as a…

  • The Names That Still Run the Town · 10.0 mi

    Walk the old part of Keene and you're walking through a roster of its founders. The first teacher in the Adventist school, in 1893, was Ella E. Evans, who taught the settlers' children before the academy even had a…

  • The Morning West Hall Burned · 10.0 mi

    On the cold early morning of January 2, 1944, fire tore through West Hall, the boys' dormitory on the campus of what was then Southwestern Junior College. By accounts of the night, a 16-year-old student named Reginald…

  • The Petrified-Wood Gate That Watches the Campus · 10.0 mi

    At the south entrance to Southwestern Adventist University stands the Mizpah Gate, and it's worth a look because of what it's made of. Completed in June 1937 as a gift from that year's graduating class, the gate was…

  • Cumberland Presbyterian Cemetery · 10.0 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving past the Cumberland Presbyterian Cemetery in Mansfield. This quiet resting place began as a burial ground right after the Civil War, around <say-as interpret-as="date" format="y">1865</say-as>. The…

  • Rodgers, Floyd H. [Slats] · 10.1 mi · Tsha Handbook

    You're driving through Central Texas, and right here near Keene, you're passing through the stomping grounds of an aviation pioneer named Floyd 'Slats' Rodgers. He was largely self-taught, and in late 1912, a mere nine…

  • Adventist Churches · 10.1 mi · Tsha Handbook

    You're driving through Johnson County, and right here in Keene, you're passing through a town founded by faith. In 1893, a group of Seventh-day Adventists established this community, seeking a place to build their lives…

  • Mizpah Gate · 10.1 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving past Southwestern Adventist University in Keene, and you're looking at the Mizpah Gate. This isn't just any old entrance; it replaced a barbed wire fence that used to keep starving livestock out of…

  • Keene, TX · 10.1 mi · Tsha Handbook

    You're driving through Keene, Texas, a town with a unique origin story tied to faith and education. Back in 1894, the General Conference of Seventh-day Adventists established a school here to train ministers. They built…

  • Rodgers Cemetery · 10.1 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving past the Rodgers Cemetery, a final resting place established by one of Kennedale's leading landowners. Thomas F. Rodgers, a farmer and stock raiser who served in the Confederate Army, came to Texas in the…

  • The Town Where the Weekend Runs Backward · 10.2 mi

    Roll through Keene on a Saturday and you'll notice something off about a Texas town: a lot of it is closed. Roll through on a Sunday and it's open. That's because Keene grew up as a Seventh-day Adventist community, and…

  • The Founder's House That Outlived Everything Else · 10.2 mi

    At 604 West Broad Street sits the oldest thing in Mansfield that's still standing: the home of town founder Ralph S. Man. The mill is long gone, the original general store is gone, but Man's house survived, built in…

  • Site of Norman Springs & Norman Grove · 10.2 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving past the site of Norman Springs, a place that once quenched the thirst of Caddo Indians and Texas pioneers. Back in 1849, William Balch claimed this land, and when he returned with his family in 1851,…

  • Ralph Man Homestead · 10.2 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving past the site of the Ralph Mann Homestead, a key piece of Mansfield's early history. Mann, a South Carolinian who arrived in Texas in the 1850s, co-founded this town with his brother-in-law, Julian Field.…

  • The Adventist Colony of Keene · 10.3 mi

    You're driving through a town that was founded as a kind of religious colony. In the 1890s the Seventh-day Adventist Church wanted a center for education in the Southwest. Leaders scouted locations, and this spot in…

  • A Laboratory for Longevity · 10.3 mi

    The town of Keene is more than just a dot on the map; for medical researchers its whole way of life is a data point in the science of longevity. Keene grew up around a Seventh-day Adventist college and is still one of…

  • The Living-Well City · 10.3 mi

    If Keene feels a little different from other Texas towns, you are picking up on something real. Adventists bought land here in Johnson County in 1892 to found a school, and that school is now Southwestern Adventist…

  • The College That Brooms Built · 10.3 mi

    In the early days of Keene, most students at the Adventist academy were poor, so the school built its answer into the curriculum: you worked your way through. Keene Industrial Academy was chartered in 1894, and by 1896…

  • Keene, TX · 10.3 mi

    Keene, Texas, is situated on a regional watershed divide, with the northern and eastern sides of the city draining to Turkey Creek, which is part of the Trinity River watershed, and the southern and western sides…

  • From Wildcat Way to the NFL · 10.4 mi

    At 901 Wildcat Way you'll find Kennedale High School, home of the Wildcats and the launching pad for one of the town's biggest names. Baron Browning came up through this program and became one of the most recruited high…

  • A Marching Band Dynasty and a Title Drought Broken · 10.4 mi

    For a town this size, Kennedale High School punches well above its weight, and not only on the field. The Wildcat Marching Band put together one of the most consistent runs in Texas, qualifying for the UIL state-level…

  • Mansfield, TX · 10.5 mi

    In the 1840s, European settlers, primarily of Scotch-Irish descent, began arriving in what is now Mansfield, Texas. These pioneer farmers, following the frontier west of the Mississippi, entered an area inhabited by…

  • Mansfield School Desegregation Crisis · 10.5 mi · Historical Marker

    In 1956, a mob blocked Black students from entering Mansfield High School. Governor Allan Shivers sent Texas Rangers not to enforce integration but to enforce segregation, defying the federal court order.

  • The Mill That Spelled Out a Town's Name · 10.5 mi

    This whole town grew up around a noise that no longer exists: the grinding of a steam-powered gristmill. The settlement out here on Walnut Creek was first just called Walnut Creek, until two transplants changed…

  • How a Mayonnaise Recipe Made the Pickle Capital · 10.5 mi

    Mansfield's strangest claim to fame started in a small rock house here in 1926, with a woman trying to sell mayonnaise. Mildred Dalton was making homemade mayonnaise while her husband Jessie Otis Dalton ran a one-room…

  • The Night a 7,000-Gallon Tank Became a Fireball · 10.5 mi

    On the evening of July 31, 1968, a fuel station called the Red Ball Gas House, out on the southern edge of the Mansfield area near Kennedale, turned into one of the worst disasters in local memory. A tanker truck was…

  • The 1917 Picture House Still Lit on Main Street · 10.5 mi

    At 109 North Main Street in downtown Mansfield stands the Farr Best Theater, which has been showing audiences a good time since October 10, 1917. It was built by Milton May Farr, one of the town's leading citizens, who…

  • The Robot Warehouse That Ships a Circuit in 15 Minutes · 10.5 mi

    That sprawling glass-and-steel campus near 1000 North Main Street is one of the most automated buildings in Texas, and almost nobody realizes it. It's the global headquarters of Mouser Electronics, which distributes…

  • Driskell, Earle C. · 10.5 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving past the former home of Earle C. Driskell, a lawyer who traded his brief for a byline. He came to Texas as a boy in 1888. In 1907, he joined the Fort Worth Star, quickly becoming a champion for better…

  • Mansfield Mill · 10.5 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving past the site of the original Mansfield Mill, a massive steam-powered operation built in 1859-60 by Julian Feild and Ralph Mann. This three-story mill ground wheat and corn, attracting business from…

  • The Rails That Turned a Mill Town Into a Stop · 10.5 mi

    For its first thirty years, Mansfield's lifeline was wagon roads and the steam mill at its heart. That changed in 1886, when the Fort Worth and New Orleans Railroad finally reached town, after local property owners…

  • The Town's Memory, on the Corner of Broad and Main · 10.5 mi

    If you want the whole story of this place in one room, the Mansfield Historical Museum and Heritage Center sits at 102 North Main Street, right on the northeast corner of Broad and Main in the historic downtown, the…

  • Thor, a Trailblazing Country Star, and a Hometown Roster · 10.5 mi

    For a town that was farmland within living memory, Mansfield has sent out a surprising number of names. The flame-throwing right-hander Noah Syndergaard, nicknamed Thor, grew up here and pitched for the New York Mets,…

  • From a Teacher's Garage to a Global Tech Hub · 10.7 mi

    You might not expect to find a global technology giant in a Texas suburb, but Mansfield is home to a major player in the world of electronics. Mouser Electronics, one of the world's leading distributors of…

  • Mansfield, TX · 10.7 mi

    In 1956, Mansfield made history as the first school district in Texas to be ordered by a federal court to desegregate. This sparked protests by 300 whites in front of Mansfield High School, to prevent three black…

  • How the Railroad Moved a Town · 10.7 mi

    As you explore Mansfield's historic downtown, you're standing on the reason this town exists at all. Around 1856 Ralph Man and Julian Feild built a grist mill at the crossroads here on Walnut Creek, the first…

  • Collier, John L. · 10.7 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving past the John C. Collier Home in Mansfield. Built in 1877, this wasn't just any house. It was the residence for John C. Collier, a Presbyterian minister and educator who founded the Mansfield Male and…

  • Nugent-Hart House · 10.8 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving past the Nugent-Hart House, a beautiful example of late 19th-century Victorian and Eastlake architecture. Built in the early 1890s by Joseph Nugent, this home showcases intricate details on its porch.…

  • St. Jude Catholic Church · 10.8 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving past the site of St. Jude Catholic Church in Mansfield, a community that started with just six Catholic families in the late 1800s. Imagine a priest traveling by train once a month, just to hold Mass for…

  • First Baptist Church of Alvarado · 10.8 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving past the site of the First Baptist Church of Alvarado. Settlers arrived in the 1850s, and Baptists here are thought to have met for years before officially forming their church on October 6, 1861. Their…

  • Alvarado Glenwood Cemetery · 10.8 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving past Alvarado's Glenwood Cemetery, a resting place born from two family plots. Back in the 1870s, the Campbell and Sansom families set aside land for their own cemeteries. The first recorded burial here…

  • Johnson County Pioneers and Old Settlers Reunion · 10.9 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving past the site of a Texas tradition that started way back in 1892. A local farmer named John James had an idea for a reunion, but folks initially said no. Undeterred, James and some writer friends…

  • Massey's BBQ: Where a Family Brand Started · 11.0 mi

    Right here in Alvarado is where Massey's BBQ began. The first one opened in 2018, started by Todd Massey and his son Dakota, with Todd's brother Terry Massey as the pitmaster. Terry was the real heart of the smoke.…

  • Congregation Ahaveth Shalon · 11.0 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving past the site of Congregation Ahavath Sholom, Fort Worth's very first Jewish congregation. Organized way back in 1892, they met in a wooden building at Hemphill and Jarvis before moving downtown in 1901.…

  • Hawkins Cemetery · 11.0 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving past Hawkins Cemetery, a final resting place for many of the Tate Springs community's founding families. It began as a private plot for Harvey Hawkins, a pioneer settler who arrived in Tarrant County in…

  • Freese and Nichols Inc. · 11.1 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving past the site of a company that's literally shaped how Texas gets its water. It all started back in 1892, when engineer John B. Hawley built Fort Worth's very first city water system. Fast forward to…

  • Mansfield Methodist Church · 11.1 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving through Mansfield, and right here is the site of a church that's been serving this community for over a century. The first Methodist congregation in Mansfield was established in 1885 by fourteen families…

  • When the Trains Turned Alvarado into a Boomtown · 11.2 mi

    Alvarado is the oldest town in Johnson County, but the thing that really put it on the map was steel rail. In 1881 two railroads reached town in the same stretch of years, the Gulf, Colorado and Santa Fe and the…

  • Site of Alvarado School, Church and Union Building · 11.2 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving through Alvarado, and right here is the site of the very first union building in Johnson County, established way back in 1854. William Balch donated this land for a place that served as a school, a church…

  • The Health-Food Store the Whole Town Built Its Diet Around · 11.2 mi

    If you want to taste what makes Keene different, stop at the Adventist Book Center and food store at 201 South Old Betsy Road. Seventh-day Adventists have long promoted a vegetarian diet, so in Keene that conviction…

  • Collier, John C. · 11.2 mi · Tsha Handbook

    You're driving through North Texas, and right here in the area, John C. Collier, known as 'Marse' to his students, was building a legacy in education. He arrived in Texas in 1855, first teaching at Bosque Academy before…

  • Alvarado, TX · 11.2 mi · Tsha Handbook

    You're driving through Alvarado, the oldest town in Johnson County! It all started in the winter of 1849 when William Balch staked a claim near an old Indian trail. Though his family left for a bit, they returned in…

  • Weaver, John Calvin · 11.2 mi · Tsha Handbook

    You're driving through Johnson County, and right here in Alvarado, John Calvin Weaver was building a life. He wasn't just a doctor, but a businessman and a state representative. In 1870, he was elected to the Twelfth…

  • The Dr. Strangelove Writer Was Born Here · 11.3 mi

    One of the sharpest satirists of the nineteen sixties was born right here in this small North Texas cotton town. Terry Southern came into the world in Alvarado on the first of May, nineteen twenty-four, the son of a…

  • Alvarado · 11.3 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving through Alvarado, a town with roots stretching back to the late 1840s. It all started with David Mitchell's trading post, but it was William Balch who really shaped this place. Settling here in 1852,…

  • Balch-Senterwood Cemetery · 11.3 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving past the Balch-Senterwood Cemetery, a resting place with a somber beginning. It was established in 1856, right next to the Balch Cemetery, to serve the African American population. The story starts with a…

  • Outlaws Benjamin Bickerstaff and Josiah Thompson · 11.3 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving near Alvarado, where in 1869, a pair of outlaws met their end. Benjamin Bickerstaff, wanted for murder in Louisiana, and Josiah Thompson, a local businessman, had joined forces and were believed to be…

  • Travis Avenue Baptist Church · 11.3 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving through Fort Worth, and right here is the site of the Travis Avenue Baptist Church. It all started back in 1908, with a small Sunday school in this developing area. By 1910, 72 people were meeting in the…

  • First Methodist Church · 11.4 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving past Alvarado's First Methodist Church. Services here started way back in 1851, in a hall built by the town's founder, William Balch. The first dedicated church building went up in 1866, but sadly, it…

  • Alvarado Masonic Lodge No. 314 A.F. & A.M. · 11.4 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving through Alvarado, and right here is the home of the Alvarado Masonic Lodge, chartered way back in 1869. These guys weren't just about fellowship; they were serious about education. Their first lodge…

  • Buchanan, TX · 11.5 mi · Tsha Handbook

    Buchanan, five miles northwest of Cleburne in central Johnson County, was established in 1856 and selected as the second county seat in a special election held on October 4 of that year, after the discovery that the…

  • Lillian, TX · 11.5 mi · Tsha Handbook

    Lillian is on Farm Road 2738 fifteen miles northeast of Cleburne in northeastern Johnson County. In 1902 G. J. Renfro purchased land from J. W. Cunningham to establish a town that would be near the line of the…

  • Hart, Richard Meredith · 11.5 mi · Tsha Handbook

    You're driving through Johnson County, Texas, where Richard Meredith Hart settled in 1855. He was a tough cattleman who drove his herds overland to Shreveport and downriver to New Orleans. Hart built his home on Mustang…

  • Johnson County · 11.5 mi · Tsha Handbook

    You're driving through Johnson County, right on the edge of the Dallas-Fort Worth metroplex. This land was once a hunting ground for various Native American tribes. In 1851, a Caddo-led uprising forced many early…

  • Shannon, William Russell · 11.5 mi · Tsha Handbook

    You're driving through what was once Johnson County, Texas, a place that saw service from William Russell Shannon. He was a farmer and legislator who left his seat in the Texas House in 1861 to organize a cavalry unit…

  • Trinity and Brazos Valley Railway · 11.5 mi · Tsha Handbook

    You're driving through what was once the heart of a new Texas railway, the Trinity and Brazos Valley. Chartered in 1902, this ambitious line aimed to connect Johnson County all the way to the Beaumont area. It started…

  • Bruce, Horatio Gates · 11.5 mi · Tsha Handbook

    You're driving through Johnson County, Texas, where Horatio Gates Bruce settled in 1848. A Confederate officer and community leader, Bruce helped found the Rock Creek Baptist Church and served as captain in the…

  • Sand Flat, TX (Johnson County) · 11.5 mi · Tsha Handbook

    You're driving through Johnson County, southeast of Cleburne. Right here is the area once known as Cuba, and before that, just Sand Flat. Settlers arrived in the late 1850s, and by 1868, the community had its own…

  • Sparks, William Fielder · 11.5 mi · Tsha Handbook

    You're driving through Central Texas, perhaps near Cleburne, and right here is a man who saw some serious Texas history unfold. William Fielder Sparks fought at the Battle of San Jacinto in 1836, helping to win Texas…

  • Bono, TX · 11.5 mi · Tsha Handbook

    Bono is on Farm Road 2331 a mile west of U.S. Highway 67 in southwestern Johnson County. The site was settled in the early 1870s with the arrival of the families of Calvin L. Jones and B. H. Williamson, who donated…

  • Pleasant Point, TX · 11.5 mi · Tsha Handbook

    Pleasant Point was a small rural settlement in northeastern Johnson County fifteen miles northeast of Cleburne, the county seat, on Farm Road 2738. Originating with the construction of a gristmill and general…

  • University United Methodist Church · 11.5 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving past University United Methodist Church in Fort Worth. It began as a small Sunday group in 1912, moving several times and facing building issues. The congregation settled at this location in 1935, holding…

  • The Cullen Davis Mansion Shootings — Fort Worth, Texas, 1976 · 11.6 mi

    Fort Worth, August second, nineteen seventy-six. Just after midnight, a man dressed in black walked through the darkened Cullen Davis estate and opened fire. Four people were shot. Twelve-year-old Andrea Wilborn died in…

  • Texas HS Baseball Leaders 2026: Paschal (Fort Worth) · 11.6 mi

    Paschal (Fort Worth, TX) placed on the 5A Texas high school baseball stat leaderboards for the 2026 season: Matthew Hernandez (4 HR); Luke Jowers (4 HR).

Explore Burleson on the Map
All music from Texas → Find another town Vote on city songs

Sign up for the free newsletter

Longer stories, research notes, photos, videos, and where the road goes next. Free, and no iPhone needed.

Subscribe free