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Mesquite, Texas

Everything Mesquite is known for

7 songs mention this city 2 artists from here

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

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Music in Mesquite

Songs About Mesquite

Life of a Rodeo Cowboy
Merle Haggard
52%
"And there's a rodeo down in Mesquite"
Santa And My Semi
Dale Watson
51%
"I saw Santa jackknife up around Mesquite"
Hey Daisy
Drew Womack
50%
"Till they light in Mesquite right in front of our eyes"
Texas Love Song
Slaid Cleaves
8%
"Or you can throw me out in the old mesquite"
White Knuckle Heart
Red Shahan
5%
"Fear of the [?] that smells of Mesquite"
Jim Murphy
Mark David Manders
5%
"The first job that we pulled was at the Allen station, next job we pulled was in Mesquite"
Tony
Johnny Cash & June Carter Cash
4%
"For down in Mesquite there's a cowboy sleeping"

Artists From Mesquite

C
Craig Wayne Boyd
country
J
Johnny Cole Murdock
country

Rivers & Roads in Song near Mesquite

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

Interstate 20 13 songs Trinity River 11 songs Interstate 45 8 songs Sabine River 13 songs Texas State Highway 199 8 songs

History of Mesquite

The Night Sam Bass Burned the Express Car for $152 RoadyGoat

On the night of April 10, 1878, the most famous outlaw in Texas hit the depot you're near. Sam Bass and his gang, including Seaborn Barnes, Henry Underwood, Arkansas Johnson, and Frank Jackson, held up a Texas & Pacific train right here in Mesquite. The express messenger had locked himself in the wooden express car, so the robbers doused its outside with coal oil and set it on fire, smoking him out until he opened the door. For all that drama, the haul was humiliating: they rode off with only about $152. The real prize, by local account roughly $30,000, had been buried in the cold ashes of the car's unlit pot-belly stove, and the gang never found it. They left the two dozen passengers alone. The robbery didn't pay off for any of them, either. Within months Bass and Barnes were shot dead in Round Rock, and Johnson was killed in Denton County that same summer. A Texas historical marker in town still tells the story. (Source: Historical Marker Database; Dallas County Pioneer Association.)

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The Town the Railroad Drew on a Prairie RoadyGoat

You're standing where a railroad survey line decided a town into existence. In May 1873, Texas & Pacific Railway engineer A.R. Alcott platted a new depot stop out on the open Dallas County prairie and named it Mesquite, after nearby Mesquite Creek. There was almost nothing here before that, the area was open grassland and a trading ground long worked by Native peoples, until the rails arrived. Station agent William Bradfield became the first settler, and people drifted in from older farming communities nearby with names like Scyene, New Hope, and Long Creek. The first businesses faced Front Street, beside a rough-sawn East Texas pine depot with platforms and livestock pens, a blacksmith shop, a confectionery, and two saloons. A post office opened in 1874, the first Baptist congregation built a church in 1877, and the town formally incorporated on December 3, 1887, with J.E. Russell as its first mayor. The depot itself burned long ago and the downtown sidings are gone, but the town the railroad sketched is still right here. (Source: Handbook of Texas; City of Mesquite historical marker.)

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The Mall That Brought Air Conditioning to Shopping RoadyGoat

Where a FedEx logistics center now hums near US 80 and Loop 12, Mesquite once held a genuine retail milestone. Big Town Mall opened in 1959 as the first enclosed, air-conditioned shopping mall in the Southwest, and some accounts argue it was among the very first in the entire country. That mattered in a place where summer afternoons routinely top 100 degrees: instead of dashing between hot sidewalks and storefronts, shoppers could stroll a cool, sealed concourse all day. For a couple of decades Big Town was the place to be in eastern Dallas County. But malls compete, and as newer, flashier centers opened, including Town East Mall just up the road in 1971, Big Town slowly faded. By the early 2000s it sat largely empty. Demolition began the week of May 22, 2006, and was finished by that September, erasing a building that had helped teach America how to shop in the air conditioning. In 2017 a FedEx facility opened on the cleared ground. (Source: Wikipedia; Mesquite local history.)

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Sam Bass Train Robbery

1878

Sam Bass -- with Seab Barnes, Hank Underwood, "Arkansas" Johnson, and Frank Jackson -- held up a Texas & Pacific train here, April 10, 1878. They took $152, but missed hidden shipment of $30,000. In planning a bank robbery 3 months later, Bass was fatally shot by rangers.

Historical Marker →

CCC Company 850

1935

During the Great Depression, Hicks Jobson set aside eight acres of his farm to allow the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC), one of President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal work relief programs, to establish a local camp. Located 1/4 mile east of Mesquite, Company 850 welcomed 250 enrollees in June 1935. The site included 24 barracks, a mess hall, health facility, bath house and recreation hall. Under Project SCS-36-T, the men worked on soil conservation and engaged more than 300 farmers in Dallas and surrounding counties on over 40,000 acres until 1941. Work included terracing, fencing, check dams and levees along the east fork of the Trinity River. The camp land was later donated to Mesquite ISD.

Historical Marker →

Kimbrough, Robert Snead

1874

Robert Snead Kimbrough, the "town father" of Mesquite, teacher, farmer, businessman, and Texas state legislator, son of Jacob C. and Martha Ann (Snead) Kimbrough, was born in Monroe County, Tennessee, on September 19, 1851. He was one of five children. Jacob Kimbrough joined the First Regiment of the Confederate Tennessee Calvary at the beginning of the Civil War in 1861. He held the rank of private until he surrendered in May 1865. After the war, he continued working as a farmer in Monroe County. Robert Snead Kimbrough grew up on his father's farm near Madisonville, Monroe County. During the Civil War, the farm was located near contested ground between Federal and Confederate troops, where Kimbrough and his family witnessed the harsh realities of war. Although the area's education system lacked organization and resources, Kimbrough managed to obtain an early education. By 1873 he had relocated to Arkansas where he worked as a schoolteacher. In 1874 Kimbrough took the Texas and Pacific Railway to Mesquite, Texas, and arrived "with only a few dollars in his pockets." He briefly taught school there before moving to Linden, Texas, where he again taught school before returning to Tennessee in 1875. He moved back to Texas in 1876, this time to Clay County, where he spent eighteen months improving a farm and building a house near what became the town of Postoak. By 1878 he had sold these for sufficient profit to enable him to return to Mesquite and establish a general mercantile business. Kimbrough participated actively in the Mesquite community. He was a founder of the First Presbyterian Church of Mesquite, established in 1881. He also helped promote business and trade within the area through his mercantile pursuits. He bought plots of land near Mesquite in order to start a farm and cultivate goods. He owned one of the first cotton gins in the area and also founded a local newspaper, the Little Mesquiter (later the Texas Mesquiter ) in 1882. Although he initially edited the newspaper, he resigned that position a year later to focus on his general store business and farm. After a dispute with J. L. Thomas, an agent of the Texas and Pacific Railroad, over freight bills and an ensuing, critical editorial in his newspaper, Kimbrough was involved in a fist fight with Thomas that turned into a shoot-out. Both men were grazed by bullets in the scrape and were subsequently arrested. Nonetheless, Kimbrough's business affairs prospered, and by 1883 he was paying taxes on more than 120 acres of land (worth more than $3,000) in and around Mesquite, plus another three thousand dollars' worth of merchandise. In December 1885 he sold his newspaper to J. M. Knox of the local Farmers' Alliance to focus on his other business interests. Kimbrough was also involved in politics during this time. In 1880 he was chosen as a delegate to attend the Dallas County Democratic convention, where he supported the renomination of Governor Oran M. Roberts . In 1882 Kimbrough served on the Dallas County Democratic Executive Committee and was a delegate to Democratic conventions at the county, congressional district, and senatorial district levels. At the senatorial convention, he was also the second assistant secretary to the committee on permanent organization. After Kimbrough announced his candidacy for the legislature in 1884, Dallas newspapers acknowledged his broad popularity and projected that he would have solid support from Dallas city voters. Calling himself "an old school Democrat," he endorsed the incumbent governor John Ireland and denounced protection tariffs and a state law that allowed cattlemen to graze their herds on public lands for free. In the November 1884 election, in which the top two vote earners won seats in the state House of Representatives, Kimbrough won more than 1,000 votes more than his colleague Zachariah E. Coombs. Kimbrough represented House District 33 and was sworn in on January 13, 1885, at the start of the Nineteenth legislatur

Tsha Handbook →

Officer Richard Houston II Memorial Highway

2021

Honors Mesquite PD Officer Richard Houston II, 21-year MPD veteran, killed December 3, 2021, responding to a domestic disturbance in an Albertsons parking lot on Belt Line Rd. Honorary segment on I-635 between LaPrada Dr and Cartwright/Bruton Rd.

Historical Marker →

Florence Ranch Homestead

1871

Florence Ranch Homestead, located at 1424 Barnes Bridge Road in Mesquite in Dallas County, was founded in 1871 by David Walker Florence and Julia Savannah (Beaty) Florence. The son of John Hicks and Martha (Walker) Florence, David was born on October 28, 1848, in St. Clair County, Alabama. Eight-year-old David, along with his parents and extended families, migrated from Alabama to Texas in 1856 and eventually settled in Van Zandt County. David Florence married Julia Savannah Beaty on December 29, 1866, in Van Zandt County. Beginning in 1871 Florence bought land in eastern Dallas County. He made an initial purchase of 207 ½ acres from the estate of Caroline Lyons in the William Little Survey in January 1871 for $2,075. Florence began the construction of their farmhouse while Julia planted from seeds a bois d'arc hedgerow around the homestead. A few of these trees have survived into the twenty-first century. The homestead was complete by September 6, 1872, when their daughter Martha was born. Regarded as one of the most successful stock farmers in Dallas County, Florence increased his Mesquite farm to 730 acres by 1892. At this time 300 acres were in cultivation, and the rest of the acreage was used for prairie hay production and pasture. To diversify his holdings, Florence and his son John Hicks Florence patented 1,280 acres in Taylor County in 1890. In 1894 they purchased 1,000 acres near Cedar Hill in Dallas County. Florence dedicated part of his property for a school which in 1946 was incorporated into the Grand Prairie School District. The school and surrounding community were known as Florence Hill. The last remaining part of the ranch owned by a Florence granddaughter was taken by eminent domain for the construction of Joe Pool Lake in the late 1970s. David and Julia Florence retired from their farming interests by 1909. In 1913 they purchased several lots in the Duff addition north of the Mesquite town square and built a Victorian-style home where they remained the rest of their lives. The Florences were instrumental in the development of Mesquite since before its founding as a small railroad town in 1873 and were active members of the community. Julia Florence died on March 1, 1914. David married Mattie (Parker) Bennett, widow of William J. Bennett in 1920. David Walker Florence died on December 7, 1932, and was buried beside Julia in the Florence family plot in Mesquite Cemetery. The Florence homestead was passed to the Florences' son Emet David Florence, who was born in the homeplace on November 20, 1885. On December 23, 1906, Emet married Perle Curtis, the daughter of Robert and Elzora (Porter) Curtis. Their daughter Florence was born at the homeplace on October 22, 1909. As a young husband and father, Emet already had performed much of the ranching duties, and in 1909 he acquired the original family homestead from his parents. In 1911, by purchasing more parcels of land, his farm increased to more than 600 contiguous acres. After completing a course in animal husbandry at Texas Agricultural and Mechanical College (now Texas A&M University) in 1906, Florence implemented new objectives for farming efficiency and introduced purebred livestock. At this time the Florence Ranch was known as Meadow View Farm, and he adopted the Terrapin brand for his stock. Florence's 320-acre native meadow was part of the rich Blackland Prairie area north and west of Mesquite, and Emet Florence became a prime producer of high quality prairie hay. More than 100 acres were dedicated for planting feed crops-oats and corn-for Florence's stock. He raised Hampshire Down sheep. He also bred purebred Shorthorn and Hereford cattle . In later years, many students of Future Farmers of America bought calves and lambs from him for school projects. Meadow View Farm became well-known for its Percheron horses. Heavily imported from France by the turn of the twentieth century, this sturdy breed was prized for its ability to draw the heaviest farm e

Tsha Handbook →

Masten, William K.

1862

William K. Masten, Methodist Church circuit preacher, mercantile business owner, and Confederate cavalry officer, was born in Ohio in 1821. He married Isabella M. Robinson in Bond County, Illinois, on November 15, 1842, and the couple moved to Dallas County, Texas, soon after. In 1850, while working as a teacher in Dallas, Masten was admitted into the East Texas Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church South. He was a circuit rider for the Tyler area and in 1857 settled in Mesquite where he led the first congregation of the Methodist Church. Masten also served as county clerk from 1856 to 1860. Masten Street in Dallas is named after him. In March 1862 Masten joined the Fifteenth Texas Cavalry and was elected captain of Company C. On May 10, 1862, he was elected lieutenant colonel. The Fifteenth was dismounted in the fall of 1862 and served as infantry for the remainder of the war. On January 11, 1863, their post, Fort Hindman in Arkansas, fell to the Union Army. Many of the captured soldiers were paroled and returned to battle with the Sixth and Tenth Texas infantries fighting in Tennessee and Georgia. After the war, Masten moved back to Dallas where he served as county clerk from 1865 to 1866 and then district clerk from 1866 to 1867. Sometime after 1870, the family left Texas and settled in California where William Masten died and is buried.

Tsha Handbook →

Things to Do in Mesquite

historical 12.2 mi away
Dealey Plaza

On November 22 1963 President John F Kennedy rode through Dealey Plaza in an open Lincoln convertible and was shot from the sixth floor window of the Texas…
historical 12.2 mi away
The Sixth Floor Museum

Where Lee Harvey Oswald fired from. The JFK assassination site at Dealey Plaza.
quirky 9.4 mi away
Big Tex at the State Fair

A fifty-five-foot cowboy named Big Tex has welcomed visitors to the State Fair of Texas in Fair Park Dallas every fall since 1952. He booms howdy folks over a…
spooky 7.9 mi away
Lady of White Rock Lake

Since the 1930s drivers along White Rock Lake report picking up a soaking-wet woman in a white dress. She asks for a ride home then vanishes leaving the seat…
food 10.9 mi away
Pecan Lodge

Dallas' best BBQ. The beef rib alone is worth the drive.
historical 16.9 mi away
Southfork Ranch

The filming location of TV's Dallas. JR Ewing lived here.
quirky 19.1 mi away
Southfork Ranch

The Ewing family TV mansion from the Dallas soap opera sits on two hundred acres in Parker Texas and is open for tours every day. JRs bedroom is there. The…

Sports in Mesquite

⭐ HOMETOWN LEGENDS Class 6A · Football

Mesquite Stormy the Skeeters — Mesquite — a college & pro athletic pipeline

5 alumni who reached major-college or pro sports

Mesquite High School has a proud tradition of producing athletes who have gone on to compete at high levels. The school's athletic programs have helped many students develop the skills and determination needed for major college and professional sports. This commitment to athletic development is reflected in the achievements of its alumni.

Among the notable former Mesquite Skeeters are Mike Ford, who played quarterback for the SMU Mustangs, and Eddie Phillips, who was a quarterback for the Texas Longhorns. In professional baseball, Sean Lowe pitched for teams including the St. Louis Cardinals and Chicago White Sox. Ngozi Onwumere competed as a sprinter and Olympic bobsledder for Nigeria, while Cory Remekun became an American professional basketball player.

Pro/D1 alumni
5
Class
6A
Founded
1902
Key Players
  • Mike Ford — (1977) – quarterback for the SMU Mustangs
  • Sean Lowe — (1989) – a former pitcher in Major League Baseball who played from 1997 through 2003 for t
  • Ngozi Onwumere — sprinter and Olympic bobsledder, competing for Nigeria
  • Eddie Phillips — quarterback for the Texas Longhorns
  • Cory Remekun — (2009) – an American professional basketball player
The moment

Sean Lowe was a pitcher in Major League Baseball.

Sources: Wikipedia · SI High School (ScoreBook Live)

Everything Near Mesquite

1688 stories, landmarks & places within ~20 miles — the nearest 200 are listed here — the same local lore RoadyGoat plays as you drive through.

  • The Night Sam Bass Burned the Express Car for $152

    On the night of April 10, 1878, the most famous outlaw in Texas hit the depot you're near. Sam Bass and his gang, including Seaborn Barnes, Henry Underwood, Arkansas Johnson, and Frank Jackson, held up a Texas & Pacific…

  • The Town the Railroad Drew on a Prairie

    You're standing where a railroad survey line decided a town into existence. In May 1873, Texas & Pacific Railway engineer A.R. Alcott platted a new depot stop out on the open Dallas County prairie and named it Mesquite,…

  • The Mall That Brought Air Conditioning to Shopping

    Where a FedEx logistics center now hums near US 80 and Loop 12, Mesquite once held a genuine retail milestone. Big Town Mall opened in 1959 as the first enclosed, air-conditioned shopping mall in the Southwest, and some…

  • The Lawrence Sisters and the Farm Time Forgot

    On East Kearney Street, a thirteen-acre green island survives in the middle of suburban Mesquite, and it's there because three sisters simply never left. Stephen Decatur Lawrence began building the family house in 1874,…

  • From a Sears Puppet in Mesquite to a Vegas Marquee

    One of the most successful entertainers ever to come out of Mesquite started with a library book and a puppet from Sears. Terry Fator grew up here, and his obsession began in the fifth grade when he found a book called…

  • The Mesquite Kid Who Drummed for Pearl Jam

    Before the flannel and the Seattle stages, one of grunge's signature drummers was a kid growing up in Mesquite. Dave Abbruzzese was born in Stamford, Connecticut, in 1968, but he came up here in Mesquite, drumming his…

  • Sam Bass Train Robbery · 0.1 mi · Historical Marker

    Sam Bass -- with Seab Barnes, Hank Underwood, "Arkansas" Johnson, and Frank Jackson -- held up a Texas & Pacific train here, April 10, 1878. They took $152, but missed hidden shipment of $30,000. In planning a bank…

  • The Mesquite Pitmaster Who Reinvented the Smoker · 0.1 mi

    Mesquite BBQ at 145 E. Davis Street in the old downtown is the oldest restaurant in town, but the real legend is the man who opened it. Herbert Oyler started the place in 1959, and he wasn't just a cook, he was an…

  • City of Mesquite · 0.1 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving past the birthplace of Mesquite, Texas! It all started in May of <say-as interpret-as="date" format="y">1873</say-as>, when engineer A.R. Alcott laid out this town for the Texas & Pacific Railroad. The…

  • Holley-McWhorter-Greenhaw Family · 0.1 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving past the Mesquite area where three generations of the Holley, McWhorter, and Greenhaw families left their mark. Nathaniel Holley arrived in 1884, eventually opening a grocery store and serving as…

  • Public Education in Mesquite · 0.2 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving past Mesquite, a town with a long history of public education. It all started back in 1885 with a small community school. That school served students until 1902, when the first building for the Mesquite…

  • First Methodist Church of Mesquite · 0.2 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving past the site of Mesquite's very first Methodist church. Back in 1857, before Mesquite was even a town, folks gathered for services led by a traveling preacher. They met in a schoolhouse until 1863, when…

Show all 200 nearby places
  • CCC Company 850 · 0.4 mi · Historical Marker

    During the Great Depression, Hicks Jobson set aside eight acres of his farm to allow the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC), one of President Franklin D. Roosevelt&#x2019;s New Deal work relief programs, to establish a…

  • City Lake Park · 0.4 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving through Mesquite, where the population was just 1,600 after World War II. In 1947, the city developed its first park, City Lake Park, thanks to donations of land and labor. It started with plans for a…

  • Mesquite Cemetery · 0.4 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving past Mesquite Cemetery, a burial ground in use even before the railroad arrived in 1873. The earliest grave here belongs to Britanna Santifee Chapman, who died in 1859. Later, in 1890, local leader Louis…

  • The Rodeo Capital of Texas · 0.5 mi

    You are now in the official 'Rodeo Capital of Texas,' and that's not just a slogan — it's a title that came by act of the state legislature. Mesquite has been putting on rodeos since 1946, when Charlie Columbus McNally…

  • The Ghost of Big Town Mall · 0.5 mi

    Near the intersection of U.S. 80 and Big Town Boulevard, you're passing the ghost of a revolution in American culture. In 1959, this spot became home to Big Town Mall, one of the nation's first enclosed, air-conditioned…

  • Mesquite, TX · 0.5 mi

    In 1878, notorious train robber Sam Bass robbed a train in downtown Mesquite, escaping with only $152. He missed the $30,000 hidden by the express agent in the unused pot belly stove.

  • The Mesquite Champion Who Became a Green Beret · 0.5 mi

    Inside Mesquite, State Highway Three Fifty Two is the Staff Sergeant Jeremie S. Border Memorial Highway. Jeremie Border played on Mesquite High School's two thousand one state champion football team. He was an Eagle…

  • Lawrence Farmstead · 0.6 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving past the site of the Lawrence Farmstead, a place that saw incredible growth right here in Mesquite. Stephen Decatur Lawrence inherited about 640 acres in 1874 and started building his first home. Just…

  • Kimbrough, Robert Snead · 1.0 mi · Tsha Handbook

    Robert Snead Kimbrough, the "town father" of Mesquite, teacher, farmer, businessman, and Texas state legislator, son of Jacob C. and Martha Ann (Snead) Kimbrough, was born in Monroe County, Tennessee, on September 19,…

  • Florence Ranch Homestead · 1.0 mi · Tsha Handbook

    Florence Ranch Homestead, located at 1424 Barnes Bridge Road in Mesquite in Dallas County, was founded in 1871 by David Walker Florence and Julia Savannah (Beaty) Florence. The son of John Hicks and Martha (Walker)…

  • Masten, William K. · 1.0 mi · Tsha Handbook

    William K. Masten, Methodist Church circuit preacher, mercantile business owner, and Confederate cavalry officer, was born in Ohio in 1821. He married Isabella M. Robinson in Bond County, Illinois, on November 15, 1842,…

  • Mesquite, TX (Dallas County) · 1.0 mi · Tsha Handbook

    You're driving through Mesquite, Texas, a city that owes its very existence to a railroad. In May of 1873, the Texas and Pacific Railway laid down tracks, and right here, a depot town sprang up. Station agent William…

  • Christian College of the Southwest · 1.0 mi · Tsha Handbook

    You're driving through Mesquite, in Dallas County, where a unique educational experiment once stood. Christian College of the Southwest, originally Garland Christian College, opened its doors in 1962 with a mission to…

  • How a Clay-Pit Town Became the Rodeo Capital of Texas · 1.6 mi

    The arena at 1818 Rodeo Drive is why the Texas Legislature crowned Mesquite the Rodeo Capital of Texas in 1993. The roots go back to the Pleasant Mound Rodeo in 1941 and a local arena run by Charlie Columbus McNally,…

  • Officer Richard Houston II Memorial Highway · 1.8 mi · Historical Marker

    Honors Mesquite PD Officer Richard Houston II, 21-year MPD veteran, killed December 3, 2021, responding to a domestic disturbance in an Albertsons parking lot on Belt Line Rd. Honorary segment on I-635 between LaPrada…

  • Bennett Family Gardens · 1.9 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving past Bennett Family Gardens, a historic cemetery that began as a simple family burial ground. In 1847, Hiram Bennett's son Hardy and his wife Sidney buried their infant daughter here, setting aside this…

  • Officer Richard Houston II Memorial Highway · 2.4 mi · Historical Marker

    Interstate Six Thirty Five inside the Mesquite city limits is named for Officer Richard Houston the Second of the Mesquite Police Department. On the third of December, two thousand twenty one, Houston answered a…

  • A Star in the Window, a Marker by the Road · 2.7 mi

    This road carries a Blue Star Memorial Highway designation, one of a string of them across Texas. The name comes from a family tradition. When someone in a household was serving in the armed forces, the family displayed…

  • First Baptist Church of Sunnyvale · 2.7 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving through Sunnyvale, and right here is the site of the First Baptist Church. Its story begins back on July 3rd, 1904, when thirteen members chartered the New Hope Baptist Church. Dr. James B. Gambrell, a…

  • Abraham Carver Cemetery · 2.8 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving through Dallas, and just off the road is the Abraham Carver Cemetery. It's a family plot, holding six generations of Carvers, with the earliest marked grave dating back to Abraham Carver himself in 1883.…

  • The Grave Marked Only by Bois d'Arc Stumps · 2.9 mi

    Long Creek Cemetery, off Long Creek Road in the southern reach of town, is the oldest thread of Sunnyvale's story. The Webb and Crownover families settled the Long Creek community around 1845, when this was still the…

  • Site of Galloway Farmstead · 2.9 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving past the site of the Galloway Farmstead, a place that saw a family grow and adapt right here in Mesquite. Confederate veteran Benjamin Galloway and his wife Eliza arrived from Tennessee in 1872. Their son…

  • Tripp Baptist Church · 2.9 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving past Tripp Baptist Church. Pioneers arrived in this area as early as 1845, establishing small settlements that developed over time into the Tripp, Long Creek, Hatterville and New Hope communities. By…

  • The One-Acre Rule That Went to the Supreme Court · 3.0 mi

    Sunnyvale's defining trait is what isn't here: subdivisions. Where neighboring suburbs sprouted dense rooftops, Sunnyvale held the line, and in 1973, after septic-tank failures plagued the area, the town locked in a…

  • The Night the Sky Came Down on Tripp Road · 3.0 mi

    On the night of December 26, 2015, the day after Christmas, a violent tornado dropped out of the dark right here. It first touched ground near East Tripp Road just west of Sunnyvale at 6:46 p.m., then tore northeast as…

  • The Bus That Left Balch Springs · 3.0 mi

    One of the worst days in this town's memory happened more than 200 miles away. In July 1987, Balch Springs Christian Academy, tied to Seagoville Road Baptist Church, took a group of kids to a summer camp on the…

  • The Day the Fire Came to Town · 3.0 mi

    On a hot, dry afternoon in July 2022, Balch Springs faced a modern-day disaster. Drought had turned a field near Interstate 20 and Belt Line Road into tinder. All it took was a spark — a crew brush-hogging the tall…

  • Sunnyvale, TX · 3.0 mi

    Sunnyvale's history is a tapestry of change and resilience. Once inhabited by Native American tribes, it passed through Spanish rule in the 18th century, then to Mexico in 1821, and finally became part of the Republic…

  • The Black Cube Where Doom Was Born · 3.0 mi

    Off LBJ Freeway here in Mesquite rises a stark black cube of an office building, the old Town East Tower, and inside it a few twenty-somethings rewired the entire video game industry. After founding id Software in 1991,…

  • The Surgeon Who Bred Texas's First TB-Free Cattle · 3.0 mi

    On the open farmland straddling Sunnyvale and Mesquite sits Samuell Farm, and its story is a piece of real veterinary-science history. Dr. William Worthington Samuell was one of early Dallas's most respected surgeons.…

  • The Town the Schoolkids Named · 3.0 mi

    The town you're passing through was christened by children. Four separate farming hamlets sat out here twelve miles east of Dallas, on the old highway between Mesquite and Garland: Long Creek, New Hope, Tripp, and…

  • New Hope, the Boomtown That Kept Burning Down · 3.0 mi

    Before there was a Sunnyvale, the busiest corner out here was New Hope, near today's Belt Line Road. It grew up around T.P. Tinsley's general store, opened about 1885, with a post office following in 1886; Tinsley and…

  • When Dallas Took Three Square Miles for a Lake · 3.0 mi

    Look toward the water on Sunnyvale's eastern edge and you're looking at a piece of the town that legally isn't the town's anymore. In the 1960s, the city of Dallas, hunting for drinking water as it boomed, dammed the…

  • The December Tornado That Walked the Suburbs · 3.0 mi

    Tornadoes are a spring story in Texas, which is exactly why the one that hit here caught everyone off guard. On December 13, 1984, an F3 tornado tore across the eastern Dallas suburbs, cutting a path through Balch…

  • The Lost Springs of Balch Springs · 3.0 mi

    The name of this city holds a poignant secret: the springs are gone. When the Balch family settled here around 1870, they found three springs on the land, and one of them never ran dry no matter how hard the summer got.…

  • How a Freeway Forged a City · 3.0 mi

    As you drive near the northern edge of Balch Springs, you’re close to the massive piece of engineering that defines the modern city: Interstate 635, the Lyndon B. Johnson Freeway. When construction began in the 1960s,…

  • Balch Springs, TX · 3.0 mi

    Balch Springs, an inner-ring suburb of Dallas, has a rich history dating back to the 1840s. The area was named after John M. Balch, who settled south of Mesquite in the late 1870s and found several springs on his land.…

  • How a Hotel Skyroof Ended Up on the Dial in Balch Springs · 3.0 mi

    Spin the AM dial near here and you'll land on 660 AM, KSKY, a station licensed to little Balch Springs that carries a surprisingly grand origin story. KSKY first signed on back on September 28, 1941, billed as Dallas's…

  • From a Spring to a Bedroom for Dallas · 3.0 mi

    For most of its life Balch Springs was barely a town at all. As late as 1900 the whole area amounted to a cemetery and a scatter of farms, and even the basics came late: electricity didn't reach the springs until 1939,…

  • The Fight to Become a City · 3.0 mi

    You might think towns just naturally grow into cities, but Balch Springs had to fight for its existence. By the early 1950s it was a fast-growing but unincorporated stretch of southeastern Dallas County, stitched…

  • Long Creek Cemetery · 3.0 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving past Long Creek Cemetery, a burial ground that's been serving families since 1855. It started when Leona Caldwell, daughter of a War of 1812 veteran, became the first person laid to rest here. Captain A.…

  • The Town of Big Yards · 3.1 mi

    For half a century, Sunnyvale had a secret weapon in its fight against urban sprawl: a simple rule. As you drive past the older homes here, notice the size of the yards. They're huge. That's not an accident; it's a…

  • Three Towns Become One · 3.1 mi

    The town of Sunnyvale exists today because of a fear of disappearing. In the early 1950s this was a scatter of small unincorporated farming communities: New Hope, Tripp, Hattersville, and Long Creek. New Hope and Tripp…

  • The Highway That Built a Suburb · 3.1 mi

    The road you may be driving on right now, U.S. Highway 80, is the artery that transformed Sunnyvale from a quiet farming outpost into a modern suburb. For decades, this road was part of the Dixie Overland Highway, a…

  • Sunnyvale, TX · 3.1 mi

    Sunnyvale made national headlines on June 5, 2023, after a tragic mass shooting incident. A family of five was shot, resulting in one woman's death and four children injured. This devastating event shocked the community…

  • Dallas's Farm in Sunnyvale · 3.1 mi

    As you drive along Highway 80, you'll pass a huge piece of land that feels like a window into the past. It's called Samuell Farm, and it has a unique story. The land belonged to Dr. W. W. Samuell, a prominent and…

  • Catfish, Karaoke, and Half a Century of Home Cooking · 3.1 mi

    If you want a meal with some Balch Springs miles on it, point the car toward Peggy's Country Cafe at 11100 Lake June Road. This is an old-school country diner, the kind that's been frying eggs and chicken-fried steak…

  • Albert Carver Cemetery · 3.1 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving past the Albert Carver Cemetery, a quiet reminder of Dallas's early pioneer days. Albert Carver, originally from Illinois, bought this land back in 1856. He wasn't just a farmer; he was a noted breeder of…

  • The Park With a Storybook Walk and a Pond · 3.2 mi

    Tucked at 3211 Hickory Tree Road, Walter E. Luedeke Park is the closest thing modern Balch Springs has to the old gathering-around-the-water tradition the town was named for. It's one of the city's busiest green spaces,…

  • From Dealers in Everything to the Feed Yard Grill · 3.3 mi

    Kearney's Feed Yard, a bar and grill at 3602 North Belt Line Road, carries one of the oldest business names in town, and it's earned. A store has stood on this site since 1889, running through the decades as Ellis…

  • New Hope, TX (Dallas County) · 3.3 mi · Tsha Handbook

    You're driving through what's now Sunnyvale, but back in the late 1800s, this was New Hope. It got a real boost in 1885 when T.P. Tinsley opened his general store. The next year, the post office arrived, and Tinsley,…

  • Sunnyvale, TX · 3.3 mi · Tsha Handbook

    You're driving east of Dallas, approaching Sunnyvale. This community didn't exist until 1953, when it was officially incorporated. But Sunnyvale wasn't just one town – it was a merger of four: New Hope, Tripp,…

  • Scyene Meeting Place · 3.4 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving past the site of Scyene, a town that once thrived in Dallas County. Back in the 1840s, settlers gathered under a tree right here for public meetings. By the 1850s, buildings replaced the tree, hosting…

  • Scyene Road, Old · 3.4 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving past Old Scyene Road, one of the very first routes in Dallas County. It started as a buffalo trail, connecting the community of Scyene to Dallas, a day's wagon ride west. To the east, it led to Jefferson…

  • The Spring That Named a Town · 3.5 mi

    Balch Springs is named for exactly what it sounds like: springs. Around 1879 a man named John Balch settled his family on land southeast of Dallas and found several springs there, one of which ran year-round and never…

  • Pioneers, Outlaws, and Two Epidemics · 3.5 mi

    The old Balch Springs cemetery is a surprisingly crowded record of the frontier. It holds the area's pioneer families and veterans of the war between the states, and, according to its historical marker, three local…

  • Why That Spring Never Ran Dry · 3.5 mi

    The spring that gave Balch Springs its name is also a tidy little science lesson. A spring runs year-round when it taps groundwater sitting on top of an impermeable layer of rock or clay, so the water keeps seeping out…

  • A Town Stitched From Vanished Villages · 3.6 mi

    Balch Springs became an official city in 1953 for a very practical reason: to keep from being swallowed by the growing city of Dallas next door. To do it, the new town stitched itself together out of a patchwork of tiny…

  • Balch Springs, TX · 3.8 mi · Tsha Handbook

    You're driving southeast of Dallas, right through Balch Springs. This community started around 1870, not with a bang, but with a trickle. The John Balch family settled here and found three springs. One of them, a…

  • Galloways' Old Home Place · 4.0 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving past the Galloway Old Home Place, a house that's seen four generations of the same family. Confederate veteran Benjamin Franklin Galloway and his wife Eliza arrived here from Tennessee. They built the…

  • A Ranch House Older Than the Town Around It · 4.1 mi

    At 1424 Barnes Bridge Road sits a home that beat the town to the prairie. David W. and Julia Savannah Florence moved over from Van Zandt County and built the first section of the Florence Ranch homestead in 1871, two…

  • Florence Ranch Home · 4.1 mi · Historical Marker

    You're cruising past the Florence Ranch Home, a place that tells a story of Dallas County's ranching roots. David and Julia Florence built the first part of this house way back in 1871, right after they moved here. Back…

  • Motley, Z., Cemetery · 4.7 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving through Mesquite, and right here is the final resting place for Zachariah Motley and his family. He arrived from Kentucky in 1856 with his wife, Mary, their children, and enslaved people. They built their…

  • Pleasant Mound Methodist Church · 4.7 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving past the site of Pleasant Mound Methodist Church, a congregation with roots stretching back to a Union Church in Scyene. Imagine a time when one building served as a general store, a Masonic Lodge, a…

  • Pleasant Mound "Public" Cemetery · 4.9 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving past Pleasant Mound Cemetery, a place that's been part of Dallas's story since its earliest days. In 1840, James Jackson Beeman arrived here from Illinois. He helped cut the first road in the Trinity…

  • Pleasant Mound Cemetery · 4.9 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving past Pleasant Mound Cemetery, a resting place for pioneers in this part of Dallas. Burials started here as early as 1869, but the first marked grave belongs to William L. Knox, dating back to 1881. That…

  • Loving, James and Margaret · 5.0 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving through Sunnyvale, and just off to the east is the final resting place of James and Margaret Loving. They were the sixteenth family to settle Dallas County, arriving in 1843 all the way from Kentucky in a…

  • Potter Cemetery · 5.0 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving past the Potter Cemetery, a final resting place for some of the earliest settlers in this part of Dallas County. John and Martha Potter bought land here in 1860, becoming pioneer citizens of the Republic…

  • Buckner Log Cabin · 5.1 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving through Dallas, and just ahead is a piece of history that started life over 500 miles away. This log cabin once stood in Madisonville, Tennessee, and it's where Dr. R. C. Buckner was born way back in…

  • Pleasant Grove Christian Church · 5.1 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving past the Pleasant Grove Christian Church in Dallas. This congregation has been through more than its share of drama! It started as a rural Union Church back in 1875. By 1906, the Ladies Aid Society was…

  • Buckner Baptist Children's Home · 5.2 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving past the site of the Buckner Baptist Children's Home, a Texas institution with over a century of service. It all began in 1879, thanks to the Rev. Robert Cooke Buckner, who was deeply concerned about…

  • La Prada Drive Church of Christ · 5.5 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving past the site of the La Prada Drive Church of Christ in Dallas. This congregation started meeting in members' homes way back in the late 1800s. By 1907, they bought land near Fair Park and used a white…

  • Kleberg · 5.6 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving through what used to be Kleberg, Texas, a town that started in 1850. It began on land granted to Robert Justus Kleberg, a veteran of the Republic of Texas Army who fought at the Battle of San Jacinto.…

  • Rylie Prairie · 5.7 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving past the site of Rylie Prairie, a community that once thrived right here. The Rylie family settled this land around 1846, coming all the way from Illinois. By the late 1800s, this was a bustling place,…

  • Rylie Cemetery · 5.8 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving through what used to be Rylie Prairie, in southeast Dallas County. In 1878, John Armstrong Rylie donated this land, first for a school, then as a cemetery starting with the burial of Redden Allumbaugh in…

  • Peacock Military Academy · 5.9 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving past the site of the Peacock Military Academy. Founded in San Antonio in 1894 by Wesley Peacock, this Dallas branch opened in 1930. It aimed to give young men from first grade through junior college a…

  • Seagoville High School, Dallas (LaMarcus Aldridge) · 6.2 mi

    Seagoville High School in Dallas is where LaMarcus Aldridge grew from a skinny prospect into a McDonald's All-American near seven feet tall. He played at the University of Texas, was drafted second overall in 2006 (by…

  • W.W. Glover Cemetery · 6.2 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving past the W.W. Glover Cemetery, a final resting place for some of Dallas County's earliest settlers. This quiet spot began as a family tragedy in 1857, when five-year-old Sarah Beeman was laid to rest…

  • Texas HS Baseball Leaders 2026: Lakeview Centennial (Garland) · 6.4 mi

    Lakeview Centennial (Garland, TX) placed on the 6A Texas high school baseball stat leaderboards for the 2026 season: Coleman Hedgecock (0.417 avg).

  • The Reservoir That Was Forney's Before It Was Dallas's · 6.5 mi

    Four miles north of downtown, the wide water of Lake Ray Hubbard spreads across the East Fork of the Trinity River, and most people boating on it have no idea it was first named for this town. The reservoir was built in…

  • Anderson Family Cemetery · 6.8 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving past the Anderson Family Cemetery, opened with the burials of William and Celia Anderson, who came here from Kentucky by way of the Missouri frontier. Their son, John Lair Anderson, a Peters Colony…

  • The Yellow Wood Hard as Iron That Named a Forney Street · 7.3 mi

    One of downtown's oldest streets isn't called Bois d'Arc by accident. The bois d'arc tree, Maclura pomifera, also known as Osage orange or horse-apple, grows thick across the Kaufman County blackland, and its wood is…

  • The Spanish-Roofed Schoolhouse the Depression Built · 7.3 mi

    At 600 South Bois d'Arc Street sits a building that looks more like a mission than a prairie schoolhouse, and that's the point. Forney's high school was erected in 1938 and 1939 with a grant from the federal Works…

  • Forney High School Building · 7.3 mi · Historical Marker

    You're cruising past the old Forney High School building, a Spanish Colonial revival gem. It went up between 1938 and 1939, thanks to the Works Progress Administration, or WPA. Look for the tile roof, the buff brick,…

  • Warren Angus Ferris Cemetery · 7.3 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving past the Warren Angus Ferris Cemetery. Ferris himself was a New Yorker, a trapper and chronicler of the West for six years before arriving in Texas in 1836. He surveyed this very area, helping to draw the…

  • Reinhardt Elementary School · 7.3 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving past the site of Reinhardt Elementary School, a place that's been educating Dallas kids since the 1880s. It all started with a little frame schoolhouse on John Chenault's farm. But when the Santa Fe…

  • Forney Independent School Dist. · 7.3 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving past the site of early education in Forney, which began around 1868 with a small room serving as both school and church. The Forney Independent School District was formed in 1899, and this site saw…

  • Big Spring · 7.4 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving past Big Spring. Big Spring, a natural water feature located in the White Rock Creek Valley near its mouth on the Trinity River in Dallas County, was claimed in 1842 by John Beeman, the patriarch of the…

  • Hillcrest Cemetery · 7.4 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving past Hillcrest Cemetery in Forney. The earliest marked grave here belongs to M. Elizabeth Collins, who died in 1867, even before Forney was settled. By 1880, this site was formally set aside as a public…

  • The Town Named Brooklyn That Had to Become Forney · 7.5 mi

    The streets around you started out as a place called Brooklyn. By 1870 settlers were drifting onto this stretch of blackland prairie, and one of them, John C. McKellar, opened the first general store. They called the…

  • The Day an EF3 Spared the Schoolchildren · 7.5 mi

    On the afternoon of April 3, 2012, a violent storm dropped an EF3 tornado just southwest of Forney, on the far side of Highway 80, and drove it north-northeast through town. With estimated winds up to 150 miles an hour,…

  • Two Old Storefronts That Hold the Whole Town's Memory · 7.5 mi

    At 200 South Bois d'Arc Street, two restored downtown buildings hold the Spellman Museum of Forney History, the place to understand everything else you're driving past. The Forney Historic Preservation League founded it…

  • The Printmaker Born on a Forney Farm · 7.5 mi

    Forney's most accomplished artist was born here on March 17, 1905. Coreen Mary Spellman, second of six children of an Irish farmer and banker, grew up on this Kaufman County land before leaving to chase a life in art…

  • Gilbert Grape's Mother Lived and Died in Forney · 7.5 mi

    One of the most quietly powerful screen performances of the 1990s came from a woman who spent her last years in a Forney home. Darlene Cates played the housebound mother of Johnny Depp's and Leonardo DiCaprio's…

  • 1899 Automobile Trip · 7.5 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving through Forney, Texas, right where a piece of automotive history happened back in 1899. Look around – imagine this scene over a century ago! On October 5th of that year, a man named Edward Green, along…

  • Dixie Overland Highway (U. S. Highway 80) · 7.5 mi · Historical Marker

    Hey road trippers! You're cruising past a piece of Texas history right here. Back in the early 1900s, before we had interstates, folks dreamed of paved roads connecting the country. The Dixie Overland Highway was one of…

  • Moore, Dick P. · 7.5 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving past the Dick P. Moore home, built in 1910, right in the middle of Forney's economic boom. Moore, a merchant and cotton farmer, built this house for his family. His wife, Nancy, lived here until 1958.…

  • William and Blanche Brooks House · 7.5 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving past the William and Blanche Brooks House in Forney. Built in 1898, this home was designed by Dallas architect Charles Alexander Gill. It was a wedding gift to the Brooks from Yancy McKellar. Notice the…

  • Forney · 7.5 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving past the site of Forney, Texas. Before the railroad, this area was just a Native American trail and early roads. Pioneer families started settling here in the mid-1840s. By 1871, a village called Brooklyn…

  • Forney Messenger · 7.5 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving through Forney, and right here, you're passing the home of its oldest continuously operating newspaper: The Forney Messenger. It first hit the streets back on April 16, 1896, thanks to M. J. Cox. Inside…

  • William Madison McDonald · 7.6 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving past the birthplace of William Madison McDonald, a man known as 'Gooseneck Bill'. Born in 1866 near Johnson Point, his parents were former slaves. McDonald was a standout student, even working for a…

  • McKellar House · 7.6 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving past the McKellar House in Forney, a home that's seen over a century of Texas history. It started as a landowner and merchant's home, built way back in 1873 by John Alexander McKellar. But its most…

  • Adams, Walter Dickson · 7.6 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving past the site of a business that served this town for nearly a century. Walter Dickson Adams arrived in Forney in 1887, and by 1893, he bought the local drugstore. He ran that business for an incredible…

  • Duncan and Emma McKellar House · 7.6 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving past the Duncan and Emma McKellar House, built back in 1886. This two-story home was one of the first high-style residences in Forney, showcasing Queen Anne and Eastlake architectural details. The…

  • How a Roadside Junk Trade Became the Antique Capital of Texas · 7.7 mi

    Forney's official claim to fame isn't a battle or a boom: it's old furniture. In the late 1960s a man named Glenn "Red" Whaley opened the town's first antique business on the east edge of Forney, and the idea caught.…

  • Travis Ranch, TX · 7.7 mi

    Nestled in the northwestern corner of Kaufman County, Travis Ranch is approximately 10 miles northeast of Mesquite and 15 miles northwest of Terrell. It shares its northern border with the city of Heath and is uniquely…

  • Brooklyn Lodge No. 386, A.F. & A.M. · 7.7 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving through Forney, Texas, a town that got its name from a railroad director. Back in 1873, the Texas and Pacific Railroad rolled in, and the village of Brooklyn was renamed Forney. The same year, the…

  • Seagoville Enemy Alien Detention Site, WWII · 7.8 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving past the former Seagoville Enemy Alien Detention Station. Originally built as a women's reformatory in 1941, this site was transferred to the INS in 1942 to hold German and Italian citizens classified as…

  • Lady of White Rock Lake · 7.9 mi · Things to Do

    Since the 1930s drivers along White Rock Lake report picking up a soaking-wet woman in a white dress. She asks for a ride home then vanishes leaving the seat…

  • DeGolyer House · 7.9 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving past the DeGolyer House in Dallas, a stunning example of Spanish Colonial Revival architecture. Everette Lee DeGolyer, a world-renowned oil geologist and book collector, moved his family here in 1936.…

  • Beeman Memorial Cemetery · 7.9 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving past the Beeman Memorial Cemetery, a final resting place for some of Dallas' earliest settlers. John and Emily Beeman arrived in Texas when it was still a Republic, eventually claiming 640 acres right…

  • The Women's Reformatory That Became a Wartime Camp · 8.0 mi

    On the west side of town near Highway 175 stands a federal compound with a strange double history. It opened on October 10, 1940, as the Federal Reformatory for Women, a minimum-security prison of colonial-style brick…

  • White Rock Dam, Reservoir and Park · 8.0 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving past the site of White Rock Lake, a crucial water source for Dallas that started as a solution to the city's thirst. By the early 1900s, natural springs just weren't cutting it for a growing Dallas. So,…

  • Lee Cemetery · 8.1 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving past the Lee Cemetery, a place with a unique origin story. Back in 1870, Confederate veteran James J. Lee donated this land, but with a crucial stipulation: no one would ever pay for a burial plot here.…

  • Civilian Conservation Corps Company 2896 · 8.1 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving past a piece of the New Deal, right here in Dallas. Back in 1935, this area was home to Civilian Conservation Corps Company 2896. These young men, earning wages and learning trades, worked on massive…

  • Shearith Israel Memorial Park · 8.1 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving past Shearith Israel Memorial Park, a testament to Dallas's Jewish community. The earliest burial here dates back to 1881. This orthodox cemetery, established by the congregation Shearith Israel, has seen…

  • Two Texas Towns Named Brooklyn · 8.2 mi

    Imagine this: the year is eighteen seventy-three, and you live in a promising little town called Brooklyn, Texas. You have a store, a church, a blacksmith shop. Then you get the news. The Texas and Pacific Railway, the…

  • Engineering a Town's Fate · 8.2 mi

    The existence of Forney in its current location is a story of 19th-century engineering and economics. When the Texas and Pacific Railway planned this stretch, its people did the cold arithmetic of grade and…

  • The 100-Year Wait to Become a Town · 8.2 mi

    Imagine a town waiting more than a century to make itself official. That's the story of Bonney. It began in 1873 as a station on the International and Great Northern Railroad, on land granted to Warren D. C. Hall and…

  • Engineering a Life on the Floodplain · 8.2 mi

    The existence of Bonney is a lesson in hydrology and engineering. You're driving on the floodplain of the Brazos River, a powerful and dynamic system. For millennia, the river has meandered across this coastal plain,…

  • The Hay Capital of the World · 8.2 mi

    In the late 19th century America ran on horsepower, and all those horses needed to eat. Forney stepped up to become their kitchen. Everybody remembers the cotton, but the town's first real fame came from hay. The deep…

  • Forney, TX · 8.2 mi

    On April 3, 2012, Forney experienced a significant event when an EF-3 tornado struck the city as part of a larger tornado outbreak. The tornado caused severe damage, destroying several homes and causing significant roof…

  • Bonney, TX · 8.2 mi

    Bonney, Texas, has a rich history that began in 1873 when it was founded as a station on the International-Great Northern Railroad. The village was named after a conductor who worked on the Houston Tap and Brazoria…

  • The Wartime Camp for Latin American Internees · 8.3 mi

    The large federal prison complex you can see from the highway holds one of Seagoville's most profound secrets. Built in 1940 as a women's reformatory, it was appropriated in April 1942 by the Immigration and…

  • Engineering a Wetland to Create Drinking Water · 8.3 mi

    Just southeast of town, on the East Fork of the Trinity River, lies a remarkable feat of environmental engineering: the John Bunker Sands Wetland Center. This isn't a natural wetland; it's a 2,000-acre man-made system…

  • Seagoville, TX · 8.3 mi

    Seagoville is a quiet suburb, but it has sent one of its own about as far as a kid can go. If you follow basketball you know the name LaMarcus Aldridge. He grew up here, played his high school ball for the Seagoville…

  • Where the Cotton Gin Became an Antique Mall · 8.4 mi

    At 210 East Broad Street stands the most literal monument to Forney's two great industries stacked on top of each other. The metal-clad building was once the heart of a cotton-gin complex, machinery built by the Murray…

  • Seago, Tillman Kimsey · 8.4 mi · Tsha Handbook

    You're driving through Seagoville, a town named for its founder, Tillman Kimsey Seago. He wasn't just a farmer; he was a Confederate soldier, a merchant, and eventually, a state legislator. But his real claim to fame…

  • Wills, Theodore Childress [Chill] · 8.4 mi · Tsha Handbook

    You're driving through Seagoville, Texas, the hometown of Chill Wills. Born Theodore Childress Wills in 1902, he adopted the nickname 'Chill' and became a distinctive voice in Hollywood. He started his career singing…

  • World War II Internment Camps · 8.4 mi · Tsha Handbook

    Although many Americans are aware of the World War II imprisonment of West Coast Japanese Americans in relocation centers, few know of the smaller internment camps operated by the Immigration and Naturalization Service.…

  • White Rock Pump Station · 8.4 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving past the White Rock Pump Station, a beautiful Renaissance Revival building designed and built by the city of Dallas back in 1911. Think about the early 1900s: Dallas was growing fast, and droughts were a…

  • Seagoville, TX · 8.4 mi · Tsha Handbook

    You're driving through Seagoville, a town that owes its existence to a general store. T. K. Seago built that store back in 1876, and a community quickly grew around it. By 1881, the Texas Trunk Railroad arrived,…

  • The Lady of the Lake · 8.5 mi

    White Rock Lake, in east Dallas, was dammed back in nineteen-ten, and the tree-lined loop around it — Lawther Drive — is where Dallas's oldest ghost story keeps getting told. Late at night, drivers say, a young woman in…

  • Barnes, Sterling Rex · 8.6 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving through Heath, Rockwall County, where Sterling Rex Barnes settled in 1846 after migrating from Mississippi. A true pioneer, he helped establish the Black Hill community, now Heath. Barnes was a charter…

  • The Town That Fought Dallas and Won · 8.7 mi

    The city of Heath exists today because a handful of farmers got out ahead of the annexation maps. In the 1950s this was an unincorporated farming community out on the blackland east of the Trinity — a place that once…

  • The Lake That Made a City · 8.7 mi

    The beautiful lake that defines Heath is not a natural feature; it’s a massive feat of civil engineering. By the 1960s, the growing city of Dallas desperately needed more water. The solution was to build a dam across…

  • Forney High School — State Softball 2026 · 8.7 mi

    Forney High School in Forney, Texas qualified for the 2026 UIL state softball championships, reaching the state tournament (final four) in Class six A, Division Two.

  • The High School That Sent Players to the Pros · 8.7 mi

    For a town its size, Forney has thrown a surprising number of people onto big stages, and a lot of them passed through Forney High School first. Caleb Hanie quarterbacked the Forney team to back-to-back top-three…

  • Dozier, Otis Marion · 8.7 mi · Tsha Handbook

    You're driving through North Texas, and right here near Forney, you're passing through the hometown of Otis Dozier. He was a prominent painter and printmaker, a key member of the Dallas Nine group of artists. During the…

  • Spellman, Coreen Mary · 8.7 mi · Tsha Handbook

    You're driving through Forney, Texas, the birthplace of Coreen Mary Spellman, a remarkable artist who made her mark on the Texas art scene. Born in 1905, Spellman developed a passion for art early on, nurtured by her…

  • Marshall, Tueria Dell · 8.7 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving through Dallas, passing the site of Lincoln High School, the city's second school for African American students. For 16 years, from 1939 to 1955, Tueria Dell Marshall led this school as principal. Beyond…

  • Forney, TX · 8.7 mi · Tsha Handbook

    You're driving through Forney, Texas, a town that owes its very name to a bit of bureaucratic confusion and a railroad. Originally called Brooklyn, the settlers applied for a post office in 1873. But there was already a…

  • Heath, TX · 8.7 mi

    Heath's growth resumed after mid-century due to suburban expansion from nearby Rockwall and the Dallas area, as well as the development of Lake Ray Hubbard in 1969-1970. Its strategic location along Farm Road 740,…

  • Heath Methodist Church · 8.7 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving past the site of Heath Methodist Church. It all started back in 1890 as Bethel Methodist Episcopal Church, South, just south of here. The congregation packed up their building and moved to Heath between…

  • Texas HS Baseball Leaders 2026: Lincoln (Dallas) · 8.8 mi

    Lincoln (Dallas, TX) placed on the 4A Texas high school baseball stat leaderboards for the 2026 season: Jose Luis Esqueda (0.523 avg); Alonzo Washington (0.487 avg, 1 HR); Mar'Karion Reagor (0.478 avg).

  • Herfurth House · 8.8 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving past the Herfurth House, a testament to early 20th-century Texas farming and architecture. In 1908, John Samuel Herfurth purchased 151 acres near Rowlett, bringing his parents to Dallas County. He soon…

  • Henry Critz Hines Founded Joppa · 9.1 mi

    Joppa — sometimes spelled Joppee — sits on the banks of the Trinity River in southeast Dallas, near the Great Trinity Forest. After the Civil War, plantation owner William B. Miller hired a formerly enslaved man named…

  • Where Discount Retail Got Started Before Walmart · 9.1 mi

    Most people credit Walmart with inventing cheap big-box shopping, but a Texas chain run out of Seagoville beat it to the punch. Herbert R. Gibson, who had built a wholesale-novelty business backed by a network of…

  • The River Locks Hiding South of Town · 9.1 mi

    A few miles south of Seagoville, the Trinity River once carried freight by barge, and the bones of an ambitious piece of engineering still lie buried in its bed. In the 1890s Dallas boosters dreamed of turning the…

  • Joppee Community · 9.1 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving past the site of Joppee, a community with deep roots right here in Dallas. After emancipation, freed slaves from the nearby Miller Plantation established Joppee in 1872, creating one of Texas's few…

  • The $200 Store That Named a Town · 9.1 mi

    You're rolling into a town that grew up around one man's general store. T.K. Seago, born in 1836, cleared his timbered land here and in 1876 opened the first store in the area, stocked with all of $200 in dry goods and…

  • The Railroad That Made Seago, and the One That Left · 9.1 mi

    Before the rails came, farmers around here hauled cotton to Dallas by wagon and fetched their mail from Lawson, and freight floated up the Trinity River by barge to locks a few miles south of town. That all changed when…

  • The Free Graveyard at the Crossroads · 9.1 mi

    At the corner of Seagoville Road and Highway 175 sits Lee Cemetery, the oldest burial ground in southeastern Dallas County and a quiet roll call of the families who built this town. It began in 1870 when James J. Lee, a…

  • Smoke on the Highway 175 Frontage Road · 9.1 mi

    If the drive has you hungry, Shorty's Texas Bar-B-Q at 705 Highway 175 North is the kind of roadside smoke joint that Seagoville does well. The operation got its start back in 2008 over in Sunnyvale off Highway 80, and…

  • Gano, Richard M. · 9.2 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving past the site where Brigadier General Richard M. Gano once commanded the Texas Frontier Cavalry. Born in Kentucky but a Texan since childhood, Gano was a true Renaissance man of the mid-19th century. He…

  • John C. McCoy · 9.2 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving past the site of a true Texas legal pioneer: John C. McCoy. He arrived in Texas in 1845, already an established lawyer from Kentucky. Here, he became the very first attorney to practice law in Dallas and…

  • Woodrow Wilson High School · 9.2 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving past Woodrow Wilson High School in Dallas, a building that's been educating students since it opened its doors in 1927. It was the seventh high school built in the city to handle the growing population in…

  • Cox Cemetery · 9.2 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving past Cox Cemetery in Dallas, a resting place reflecting the pioneer heritage of this area. It holds over 400 marked graves and an estimated 100 more unmarked. The oldest tombstone here dates to 1848,…

  • Oakland Cemetery · 9.2 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving past Oakland Cemetery, a garden cemetery vision started in 1891 by O.S. Riggen. Though Riggen died before his dream took root, others incorporated the Oakland Cemetery Company that same year. Landscape…

  • Lincoln High School, Dallas (Chris Bosh) · 9.3 mi

    Lincoln High School in Dallas is where Chris Bosh led a 40-0 national championship season while also excelling in the classroom as a National Honor Society member. He starred at Georgia Tech, won two NBA titles with the…

  • Big Tex - State Fair of Texas · 9.3 mi · Historical Marker

    Big Tex was not born a cowboy. He started life in 1949 as a 49-foot Santa Claus erected by the Kerens, Texas Chamber of Commerce to attract Christmas shoppers. The campaign was a flop. The State Fair of Texas bought the…

  • Steel Dust, Fabulous Quarter Horse · 9.3 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving past the Dallas area where Steel Dust, a champion Quarter Horse, made his name. Brought to Texas in 1844, this Virginia-bred stallion was so fast, jockeys used molasses to stay on his back! He won big…

  • The Park One City Owned Inside Another · 9.3 mi

    On the lakeside tract along Interstate 30 sat one of North Texas's odder real-estate stories. Elgin B. Robertson Park, 257 acres of prime shoreline on Lake Ray Hubbard, sits squarely inside Rowlett, yet for decades the…

  • Texas Star · 9.3 mi · Scraped Hmdb

    Get ready for a Texas-sized view! The Texas Star Ferris wheel has been a towering landmark at the State Fair of Texas since 1985. It's more than just a ride; it's a symbol of the fair itself. Standing at 216 feet, the…

  • WRR Radio · 9.3 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving past the birthplace of WRR Radio, a pioneering station born from tragedy. A fire in 1912 highlighted the need for faster communication, leading Dallas to install a 50-watt radio station at fire department…

  • Pioneer Cemetery · 9.3 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving past the Pioneer Cemetery, the final resting place for many Dallas County pioneers. It began in the churchyard of Duck Creek Methodist Church, organized way back in the <say-as interpret-as="date"…

  • Big Tex at the State Fair · 9.4 mi · Things to Do

    A fifty-five-foot cowboy named Big Tex has welcomed visitors to the State Fair of Texas in Fair Park Dallas every fall since 1952. He booms howdy folks over a…

  • Cotton Bowl (stadium) · 9.4 mi · Scraped Hmdb

    Feel the roar of the crowd at the Cotton Bowl, a legendary stadium that has hosted countless historic games and events since 1930. Originally named Fair Park Stadium, it's been the site of the State Fair of Texas since…

  • Klan Day at the State Fair · 9.4 mi

    In October nineteen twenty three, the State Fair of Texas at Fair Park held a Klan Day. Dallas Klan Number Sixty Six reportedly had about thirteen thousand members then, and its members called it the largest chapter in…

  • Marcus House · 9.4 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving through Dallas, and right here is the Marcus House. Stanley Marcus, a giant of fashion retailing, wanted a modern home. After Frank Lloyd Wright didn't deliver, he hired Dallas architect Roscoe DeWitt.…

  • Good Samaritan Hospital (Leland Avenue) · 9.4 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving past the former site of the Good Samaritan Hospital, a place that offered care to everyone in Dallas, regardless of their ability to pay. Opened around 1920 by Martha Schultze, a German immigrant and…

  • The South Dallas Pastor Who Kept the Peace · 9.5 mi

    U.S. Highway One Seventy Five and State Highway Three Ten, from Interstate Forty Five out to Loop Twelve, make up the S. M. Wright Freeway. Sylvester Marilyn Wright grew up in the Bon Ton community, one of the poorest…

  • Texanic in proportion, centennial in character · 9.5 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving past the Hall of State in Dallas, a building designed to be 'Texanic in proportion and centennial in character.' Completed during the 1930s Depression, it served as the focal point for the 1936 Texas…

  • Hall of State · 9.5 mi · Historical Marker

    Construction of this building, which served as the focal point of the 1936 Texas Centennial Central Exposition, was approved by the State Legislature to be "Texanic in proportion and centennial in character." Designed…

  • Hall of State · 9.5 mi · Scraped Hmdb

    Prepare to be transported back to a time of grand celebration and Texas pride! This is the Hall of State, built to commemorate Texas history and culture. Originally called the State of Texas Building, it was constructed…

  • Texas Women in the Civil War, A tribute to · 9.5 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving through Dallas, and it's worth remembering the women who held down the home front during the Civil War. While 90,000 Texans fought for the Confederacy, their wives and families kept farms and businesses…

  • Little Egypt · 9.5 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving past the site of Little Egypt, a Black community founded by former slave Jeff Hill in 1883. For decades, it held onto its rural character, even with a church and schoolhouse. But in 1962, the whole…

  • The Day After Christmas Tornado · 9.6 mi

    On December 26, 2015, as families were enjoying the holiday weekend, the weather took a dark turn. A violent supercell thunderstorm spawned a tornado that touched down west of Sunnyvale and carved a thirteen-mile path…

  • The Water That Made the Peninsulas · 9.6 mi

    Look at a map of Rowlett and the town seems to reach out into the water with long, finger-like peninsulas. Those fingers are the gift, and the doing, of Lake Ray Hubbard. The City of Dallas dammed the East Fork of the…

  • The Night After Christmas · 9.6 mi

    On the night of December 26, 2015, a violent tornado tore out of the dark across the eastern Dallas suburbs. It reached EF4 strength near Garland, where it peaked around 180 mph and lifted vehicles off the elevated…

  • Engineering a Lakeside City · 9.6 mi

    The massive body of water defining Rowlett’s eastern edge, Lake Ray Hubbard, isn’t a natural lake. It’s a remarkable piece of civil engineering. By the 1960s, the city of Dallas was growing fast and desperately needed…

  • How You Rate a Wind You Never Measured · 9.6 mi

    Here's a puzzle the 2015 Rowlett tornado leaves behind: nobody put an anemometer in the funnel, so how do we know it hit 180 mph? The answer is forensic engineering. The Enhanced Fujita scale, used by the National…

  • Big Tex · 9.6 mi · Scraped Hmdb

    Howdy, folks! You're near the stomping grounds of Big Tex, the State Fair of Texas's larger-than-life cowboy. He's more than just a statue; he's a symbol of Texas itself. Big Tex first appeared in 1952, quickly becoming…

  • Hall of Negro Life · 9.6 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving through Dallas, and right here stood the Hall of Negro Life, built for the 1936 Texas Centennial Exposition. It was a dedicated space to showcase the achievements of African Americans, featuring nearly…

  • Dawdy's Ferry · 9.6 mi

    You're cruising past where Alanson Dawdy once ran the southernmost crossing on the Trinity River. Back in 1854, this Illinois native got the license to operate his ferry right here. For twenty years it was the only…

  • Named for a Man Who Never Lived Here · 9.6 mi

    The town you're rolling into carries a name its namesake almost certainly never saw up close. Daniel Rowlett led a small company of Kentucky families into Texas in 1835, settling first in the Tulip Bend country along…

  • Rowlett, TX · 9.6 mi

    The city's name, Rowlett, has a unique origin. It was derived from Rowlett Creek, which in turn was named after Daniel Rowlett, who moved from Kentucky to Bonham, Texas, in 1835. Daniel was a member of the Smoot-Rowlett…

  • Rowlett, TX · 9.6 mi

    Rowlett, a city in Dallas and Rockwall Counties, has a rich history that dates back to its first post office opening in 1880, named 'Morris' after Postmaster Austin Morris. The town was later renamed 'Rowlett' after a…

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