Where there are now houses and an elementary school, there used to be one of the loudest places in North Texas. Green Valley Raceway opened in 1960 on Bill McClure's old dairy farm in Smithfield, a combined road course and drag strip that drew 125,000 spectators in its first full season and hosted NHRA, AHRA, and Trans-Am racing. Its single most famous day came on February 17, 1974, when daredevil Evel Knievel roared up a ramp and cleared eleven parked Mack trucks while broadcaster Howard Cosell and former Cowboy Don Meredith called it for ABC's Wide World of Sports in front of a crowd around 30,000. Knievel made the jump cleanly, then paid for the rough landing the next day in a hospital bed, telling a local reporter he'd felt his back go on impact. Months later, in September 1974, he attempted his ill-fated Snake River Canyon leap. Green Valley Raceway ran until 1986, then was demolished. Today Green Valley Elementary sits on part of the ground where the engines once screamed. (Source: WFAA; Green Valley Raceway history.)

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The Dairy Farm That Became a City of Seventy Thousand RoadyGoat

The streets and strip centers around you sit on what was, within living memory, open dairy pasture. This corner of northeastern Tarrant County traces back to the Peters Colony, where empresario W.S. Peters agreed to bring some 600 families into the region, and settlers began arriving in the summer of 1848. For more than a hundred years it stayed farm and ranch country. Then in 1952 a man named Clarence Jones subdivided his 268-acre dairy farm into home lots, and rather than annex to the neighboring development of Richland Hills to the south, the roughly 500 residents chose to stand up their own town. They borrowed the name of that successful neighbor and added a direction, becoming North Richland Hills, incorporated by election in 1953. From there the growth was explosive: about 8,600 people by 1960, more than 16,000 by 1970, over 45,000 by 1990. Today it is the fourth-largest city in Tarrant County, with more than 70,000 residents on ground that one farmer once milked cows. (Source: Handbook of Texas; City of North Richland Hills.)

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Zion, the Railroad, and the Birth of Smithfield RoadyGoat

The Smithfield part of North Richland Hills started life under a different name: Zion, a small farming settlement here before 1870. The thing that made it a town was iron. When the St. Louis and Southwestern Railway, the Cotton Belt, laid track through the area in 1887, the new depot rose about a quarter mile south of Zion, and the community shifted to meet it. The settlement was renamed Smithfield for Eli Smith, who had earlier donated land here for a church and cemetery. As a shipping point for area farms and ranches, Smithfield grew steadily even after a bad fire in 1890; by 1900 it counted 137 people and a school with three teachers and 156 students. Wartime jobs in nearby Fort Worth pushed it to about 350 residents by the late 1940s. After a bitterly fought campaign, North Richland Hills annexed Smithfield in 1958. The old railroad town's name lives on in a cemetery, a Masonic lodge, and the TEXRail commuter station that still stops where the Cotton Belt once ran. (Source: Handbook of Texas.)

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Judge Benjamin Franklin Barkley

1855

(1822 - 1882) In 1855 Benjamin F. Barkley, a Kentucky physician, with his wife Malinda Elizabeth Duncan (1827-1917) and their children settled on a farm at Birdville. There he practiced medicine, became a lawyer, and a charter member of Masonic Lodge No. 148 in Fort Worth. In 1856 Dr. Barkley tried unsuccessfully to keep the county seat at Birdville. As a Republican leader, he spoke out against slavery and secession. Barkley was admired for donating land for Birdville's cemetery and participating in Indian campaigns, but his strong will and pro-Union stand stirred anger in the area. He barely escaped death several times. Barkley treated wounded Confederate soldiers and aided their families despite his opposition to the Civil War, and served as local postmaster during the war. During Reconstruction, Barkley headed the county registration board which denied the vote to former Confederate supporters. He was appointed county judge in 1867 and used federal troops to maintain order. With great courage he fought to protect the rights of the ex-slaves. He left office after Democrats won all county offices in 1873, but remained active in law and medicine throughout North Texas for the remainder of his life. (1979)

Historical Marker →

Hadley, Erma Jean Chansler Johnson

1968

Erma Jean Chansler Johnson Hadley, born on October 6, 1942, in Leggett, Texas, daughter of Leondus "Leon" H. and Thelma (Davis) Chansler, was the first African American from Leggett to graduate from college. She was also the first woman and first African American to lead Tarrant County College (TCC, known until 1999 as Tarrant County Junior College). She graduated from Dunbar High School in Livingston in 1959 and received her bachelor's degree in business education from Prairie View A&M University. Although her courses were intended for teachers, and although she received a teaching certificate, Erma Chansler studied business education because she wanted to become a secretary. Upon graduating, she began working for an income tax accountant. She soon discovered that being a secretary was not her true passion, so she went on to teach business education at the all-Black Turner High School in Carthage, Texas. She earned her master's degree in business education from Bowling Green State University in Ohio. She also took graduate courses in business education at the University of Texas at Austin and post-graduate studies in higher education administration at the University of North Texas. On December 27, 1971, Erma Chansler married Lawrence Eugene Johnson, with whom she had one daughter, T. Ardenia. Following her husband's death in 1996, she married Bill J. Hadley. In 1968 she began teaching business at Tarrant County Junior College's Northeast Campus in Hurst in its inaugural semester. Across her decades-long career with TCC, she held numerous administrative positions, including director of personnel, vice chancellor for human resources, and vice chancellor for administrative and community services before being appointed interim chancellor in 2009 and then chancellor in 2010. She established several organizations and initiatives for college employees, such as Leadership TCC; the TCC Institute; and the TCC Employee Scholarship Program, which provided stipends to TCC staff taking TCC classes. She also established the district's call center; the District Fulfillment Center, which handled bulk mailing; and the TCC campus copy centers. Erma Hadley markedly improved diversity in both the student body and the staff at TCC following her appointment as chancellor. Enrollment also grew considerably under her leadership. She belonged to several community-focused organizations. She was appointed to the Trinity River Authority of Texas by Governor Bill Clements and to the Texas Governor's Committee of Volunteerism by Governor George W. Bush. She was a member of the North Texas Commission, the Tarrant County Hospital District board of directors, the Rotary Club of Fort Worth, the Texas A&M Research Foundation board of directors, and the Texas College of Osteopathic Medicine advisory council. She chaired the JPS Health Network; the United Way Marketing Committee; and the Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport board of directors, where she was the first woman and first African American to be appointed chair of the board-a noteworthy accomplishment for a woman during a time when White men controlled many of these businesses and organizations. She ran for Fort Worth city council in 1997 but lost. Her many awards and honors included an honorary doctorate in education from Paul Quinn College in Dallas and induction into the Texas Women's Hall of Fame in 2010. She was an active member of the Mount Rose Baptist Church in Fort Worth. Erma Johnson Hadley died of pancreatic cancer on October 1, 2015, at the age of seventy-two.

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Parker Cemetery

1836

Land for cemetery donated by Isaac Duke Parker, Jan. 14, 1901. He was son of Isaac Parker, pioneer politician for whom Parker County was named and who was the uncle of Cynthia Ann Parker, white girl captured by Comanche Indians in 1836 and reared as an Indian. She was the wife of Comanche Peta Nocona and mother of Quanah Parker, the last great Comanche war chief. Both Isaac Parker and Isaac Duke Parker served as members of the Texas Legislature. Isaac Duke Parker is buried here. Cemetery also contains a public burial section.

Historical Marker →

Birdville, Site of Tarrany County's First Courthouse

1849

First (1849-1856) county seat, Tarrant County, with 80 acres for public use. Courthouse foundation was laid on site donated by G. Akers and W. Norris. After courts upheld--in Walker vs. Tarrant County--vote in bitterly contested 1856 election, Fort Worth became the county seat. (1968).

Historical Marker →

Hurst, TX

1870

Hurst, just to the north of Fort Worth, is on State Highways 121 and 10, north of the West Fork of the Trinity River in the northeastern quadrant of Tarrant County. By the middle or late 1840s farmers were beginning to settle within what are now the confines of Hurst. Isaac Parker's log cabin, purchased in 1853, lay just outside what is now the southwestern corner of Hurst, and the Parker family cemetery is now within the city limits. Important among the settlers who moved there after the Civil War were Tennessee families, especially that of William L. Hurst, and Indiana families, including those of Daniel Arwine and Jeff Souder. The Indiana clans established a church and school at the site in the late 1870s and thereafter the community always supported at least one church and one school. The Arwine farming and ranching community grew slowly until the Rock Island line was built through in 1903. William Hurst donated land in exchange for the establishment of a depot named for him. The Rock Island at first labeled the site Hurst, but there was already a Hurst in Coryell County that had a post office. So the budding Tarrant County community was soon named Ormel; it had a post office from 1904 to 1909. The community was renamed Hurst in 1909. The depot and its stationmasters and telegraphers operated for some thirty years. Yet there were probably no more than twenty people in downtown Hurst between 1910 and 1920, and the area's agricultural products-cotton, grain, and cattle-were not enough to make the train stop regularly. Sand and gravel excavations began south of Hurst in the Trinity riverbottoms early in the 1900s; larger round-the-clock operations began in the 1920s. Illegal whiskey was brewed along the wooded river too, selling for about $10 a gallon during prohibition , 1919-1933. After 1903 there was at least one general store in the community, and during the 1930s and 1940s a handful of grocery stores, filling stations, and cafes opened. The Work Projects Administration erected a brick school in 1940, and the population of Hurst numbered perhaps 100. By the 1940s Hurst was becoming a bedroom community for Fort Worth. Its post office was revived in 1949. Old State Highway 183 (now State Highway 10) was paved with concrete in 1950, and in 1951 Bell Aircraft (Helicopter) announced it would build a plant in Hurst. To prevent Fort Worth from annexing it and to help secure a water supply, Hurst in 1951 voted, 36 to 24, to incorporate. A shopping center and apartments were being built before that year was out. A chamber of commerce organized at Hurst in 1952 and merged with the Euless chamber in 1955; the Bedford chamber joined in 1969. The Hurst and Euless school districts merged in 1955, joined by Bedford in 1958. It was estimated in 1958 that of the 8,500 people living in Hurst, 50 percent worked in Dallas and 40 percent in Fort Worth. Blocked from growing to the south by Fort Worth, Hurst from 1956 to 1958 overzealously pursued annexations in other directions; this triggered intercity tensions and defensive reactions by other "mid-cities" communities. The northeast campus of Tarrant County Junior College (now Tarrant County College ) opened in Hurst in 1968, prompting more growth and jobs. During the height of the Vietnam War, the Bell Helicopter workforce topped 11,000, many of them building Hueys. Hurst, Euless, and Bedford formed a hospital district in 1969. By 1970 the population of Hurst was more than 27,200. The North East Mall arrived in 1972, doubling retail sales in Hurst in a month, and in the early 1990s it remained the largest mall in Tarrant County. The construction of the Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport and its January 1974 opening further stimulated the local economy, but in the 1970s the town had almost reached the limits of possible expansion, and its population growth inevitably slowed. Many of the newcomers were professionals and members of the Republican party , which changed the character of the

Tsha Handbook →

North Richland Hills, TX

1950

North Richland Hills is on State highways 26, 183, and 820, eight miles west of the Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport and eight miles northeast of downtown Fort Worth in northeastern Tarrant County. The town is part of the Fort Worth-Arlington Metropolitan Statistical Area . The area was agricultural until 1950, when Clarence Jones developed his farm into a residential area and named it North Richland Hills, in imitation of an adjacent successful development to the south. The city was incorporated by election on April 25, 1953. During the 1980s North Richland Hills had a broad business base, manufacturing everything from computers (Tandy Advanced Products) to mattresses (Ohio Sealy). Other businesses included Walker Construction Company, Sanger Harris (Foley's retail), Graham Magnetics (magnetic tape), Bates Containers, Allied Northeast Bank, Interfirst Bank, and the Bank of North Texas. The Mid-Cities Daily News and the North Hills News were the local papers. In 1990 the Birdville Independent School District had six elementary schools, one junior high, and one senior high in North Richland Hills. In addition, there were several denominational schools, and twenty-two churches representing ten faiths. The city boundary ran through the northeast campus of Tarrant County Junior College. A municipal complex built in 1960 and expanded in 1987 housed the police department, the water department, and the city administration. A second civic center of 87,000 square feet housed the city library and the Parks and Recreation Department; the theater in the building was home to the North East Fine Arts League. In 1958 North Richland Hills had an estimated population of 7,000. Its population increased steadily, until by 1970 it was estimated at 15,735. In 1978 the population was 23,265, and by 1990 it had risen to 38,959. In the early 1990s North Richland Hills had a council-manager form of city government . By 2000 the population reached 55,635.

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Things to Do in North Richland Hills

quirky 20.4 mi away

Chewbacca's Grave — May the 4th

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

historical 24.7 mi away

The Sixth Floor Museum

Where Lee Harvey Oswald fired from. The JFK assassination site at Dealey Plaza.

historical 24.7 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 7.5 mi away

Fort Worth Stockyards

Daily cattle drives down the street. Honky-tonks and rodeos in the old West.

historical 7.5 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…

food 7.7 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 18.9 mi away

WWII Marine Glider Base at Eagle Mountain

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

quirky 18.9 mi away

The Azle Earthquake Swarm

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

Sports in North Richland Hills

⭐ HOMETOWN LEGENDS Class 5A · Football

Richland Royals — Richland — a college & pro athletic pipeline

4 alumni who reached major-college or pro sports

North Richland Hills is certainly a community that rallies behind its own, and Richland High School has seen its share of talented athletes go on to compete at higher levels. The tradition of athletic excellence at Richland has paved the way for several former Rebels to achieve professional careers. It's always a point of pride for the community to see these athletes represent their hometown.

Among the notable alumni who have continued their athletic journeys are Kelly Blackwell, a former NFL player, and Trent Grisham, a professional baseball player in Major League Baseball (MLB) who currently plays for the New York Yankees. The football field has also seen DaShaun White, a professional football player in the National Football League currently with the San Francisco 49ers, and Rashee Rice, a professional football player in the National Football League currently with the Kansas City Chiefs.

Pro/D1 alumni

Class

Founded

1961

Key Players

Kelly Blackwell — (Class of 1987), former NFL player
Trent Grisham — (Class of 2015), professional baseball player in Major League Baseball (MLB) and currently
DaShaun White — (Class of 2018), professional football player in the National Football League and currentl
Rashee Rice — (Class of 2019), professional football player in the National Football League and currentl

The moment

Trent Grisham is a professional baseball player in Major League Baseball (MLB) and currently plays for the New York Yankees.

Sources: Wikipedia · SI High School (ScoreBook Live)

Everything Near North Richland Hills

1489 stories, landmarks & places within ~20 miles — the nearest 200 are listed here — the same local lore RoadyGoat plays as you drive through.

The Day Evel Knievel Jumped Eleven Mack Trucks Here
Where there are now houses and an elementary school, there used to be one of the loudest places in North Texas. Green Valley Raceway opened in 1960 on Bill McClure's old dairy farm in Smithfield, a combined road course…
The Dairy Farm That Became a City of Seventy Thousand
The streets and strip centers around you sit on what was, within living memory, open dairy pasture. This corner of northeastern Tarrant County traces back to the Peters Colony, where empresario W.S. Peters agreed to…
Zion, the Railroad, and the Birth of Smithfield
The Smithfield part of North Richland Hills started life under a different name: Zion, a small farming settlement here before 1870. The thing that made it a town was iron. When the St. Louis and Southwestern Railway,…
The Pioneer Cemetery That Outlived Its Town
At 6704 Smithfield Road sits the quiet ground that anchors the whole Smithfield story. Eli Smith, the Missouri-born farmer for whose family the town was named, came to Texas around 1859 and in the early 1870s gave part…
Texas's First City-Owned Water Park
When NRH2O opened on Boulevard 26 in 1995, North Richland Hills did something no other Texas city had done: it built and ran its own water park. It started modestly, with three body slides, a river, and a wading pool,…
Bird's Fort: The Outpost That Named a County
The name stamped on Birdville, on Bird's Fort, and ultimately on this whole stretch of Tarrant County belonged to one frontier soldier. In 1841, following the Battle of Village Creek, Major Jonathan Bird built a…
How a Texas City Manufactures the Ocean on Boulevard 26
The waves rolling across NRH2Ocean at NRH2O Family Water Park are not nature's work, they are a controlled blast of compressed air. The wave pool here covers about 12,000 square feet and holds roughly 225,000 gallons,…
Richland High School — State Softball 2026 · 0.6 mi
Richland High School in North Richland Hills, Texas qualified for the 2026 UIL state softball championships, reaching the state tournament (final four) in Class four A, Division One.
The Farmer Behind Rufe Snow Drive · 0.7 mi
If you've driven Rufe Snow Drive, you've used a road named for a man who spent his life serving this rural community long before it was a city. Rufus Snow, who lived from 1867 to 1957, was a local farmer who also gave…
The Iron Horse Returns · 1.3 mi
Richland Hills was built around the automobile, but for a while it had something most Fort Worth suburbs never got — its own commuter rail platform. The Trinity Railway Express station here opened on September 16, 2000,…
The Man Named Rich · 1.3 mi
Imagine it is 1950. Where you are now was open Tarrant County ground, eight miles northeast of downtown Fort Worth. What put houses on it was work. The defense plants around Fort Worth had boomed through the Second…
North Richland Hills, TX · 1.4 mi
North Richland Hills, or NRH, has a rich history that began with W.S. Peters' agreement to bring 600 families into the area within three years as part of a land grant. Families started arriving in the summer of 1848.…

Show all 200 nearby places

The Ghost Town Inside the Suburb · 1.4 mi
As you travel through the tidy neighborhoods of North Richland Hills, you're driving through what's left of another town. Before any of this there was Smithfield, and before that it was called Zion, after the Methodist…
The Highway That Sculpted a Suburb · 1.4 mi
As you drive Interstate 820 through North Richland Hills, you're on a road that drew the city around it rather than the other way around. The federal Bureau of Public Roads laid out I-820 in October of 1959 as a…
The Water Park That Built a City's Pride · 1.4 mi
You might drive by the NRH2O Family Water Park and see just a fun summer spot, but it represents a major turning point in this city’s history. For decades, North Richland Hills wrestled with its identity as a 'bedroom…
The 30-Vote Victory That Created a City · 1.4 mi
The existence of North Richland Hills as a city comes down to one dairy farm and one rejection. In 1952 Clarence Jones began subdividing his 268-acre dairy farm out here, back when this was open country northeast of…
A Golf Course Built Around the Railroad That Made the Town · 1.5 mi
Iron Horse Golf Course leans hard into the one thing that built this whole community: the train. Opened in 1988 to a Dick Phelps design and owned by the City of North Richland Hills, the course at 6200 Skylark Circle…
North Richland Hills, TX · 1.9 mi · Tsha Handbook
North Richland Hills is on State highways 26, 183, and 820, eight miles west of the Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport and eight miles northeast of downtown Fort Worth in northeastern Tarrant County. The town is…
The Name That Traveled From a Tennessee River · 2.2 mi
The town you're rolling through carries a name that took a long road to get here. Settlers brought Watauga west from the Cherokee country of East Tennessee, where the Watauga River runs over the rocky rapids of Sycamore…
The Great Watauga Train Wreck · 2.2 mi
Near where the tracks cross Big Fossil Creek, Watauga lived through a night the whole town never forgot. Around 1917, a Katy freight train had stopped on the line close to the Big Fossil Creek bridge. Dispatchers over…
Watauga, TX · 2.2 mi
Watauga is a place where the quiet hum of suburbia meets the echoes of Friday night lights. It's easy to drive through and see just another comfortable residential area, but there's a story woven into these streets – a…
Tennessee Families on the Prairie Springs · 2.2 mi
Long before subdivisions and the U.S. 377 traffic, this corner of northern Tarrant County drew families who'd come west chasing game, fertile fields, and clear spring water. Tradition places the first Tennessee settlers…
The Depot That Made the Town, Then Left It · 2.2 mi
Watauga only became a recognizable community because the railroad decided to come through. When the Texas and Pacific Railway pushed its tracks across this stretch of prairie in 1881 on the run toward Fort Worth, the…
The Seventy-Year Wait · 2.2 mi
The railroad tracks that run through Watauga tell a strange story of delayed gratification. When the Texas and Pacific Railway laid this line in 1881, it was a huge event. A stop was established, a name was given, and…
The Making of a Highway Town · 2.2 mi
The main commercial spine of Watauga is U.S. Highway 377, better known around here as Denton Highway, and it's the reason this city looks the way it does. Watauga sat on the Texas and Pacific tracks from 1881 and barely…
Engineering a Creek That Floods a Town · 2.2 mi
The same Big Fossil Creek that staged Watauga's famous train wreck is also the town's biggest engineering problem, and one of the more unusual flood-control case studies in North Texas. Big Fossil Creek is a tributary…
Parker Cemetery · 2.2 mi · Historical Marker
Land for cemetery donated by Isaac Duke Parker, Jan. 14, 1901. He was son of Isaac Parker, pioneer politician for whom Parker County was named and who was the uncle of Cynthia Ann Parker, white girl captured by Comanche…
From 65 People to a City in One Generation · 2.2 mi
Watauga spent the first half of the 20th century nearly empty, just 65 residents in the mid-1930s, a farming dot the railroad had abandoned. Then Fort Worth went to war. The defense plants that ringed the city in and…
Parker, I.D., Public Cemetery and Homestead · 2.2 mi · Historical Marker
You're driving past the site of the I.D. Parker Homestead and Cemetery, a symbol of a prominent pioneer family right here in Hurst. Isaac Duke Parker arrived in 1853, settling down with his family. During the Civil War,…
Birdville, Site of Tarrany County's First Courthouse · 2.3 mi · Historical Marker
First (1849-1856) county seat, Tarrant County, with 80 acres for public use. Courthouse foundation was laid on site donated by G. Akers and W. Norris. After courts upheld--in Walker vs. Tarrant County--vote in bitterly…
The Five-Star Restaurant Inside a Gas Station · 2.3 mi
For two decades the unlikeliest fine-dining room in Texas sat inside a working Conoco at 5901 Watauga Road. Chef Point Cafe opened in 2003, the project of chef Franson Nwaeze, who'd come to America from Nigeria meaning…
Named for Fossils, Remembered for a Flood · 2.4 mi
The creek slipping through the east side of Haltom City wears its origin story in its name. Big Fossil Creek was christened by an early settler who found fossils along its banks, the petrified leftovers of an ancient…
West Fork Baptist Association · 2.4 mi · Historical Marker
You're driving through Haltom City, right where Texas Baptists were organizing back in the 1850s. On October 12th, 1855, delegates from twelve frontier churches gathered at Birdville. Their mission? To form the West…
Birdville Baptist Church · 2.4 mi · Historical Marker
You're driving past the site of Birdville Baptist Church. This congregation got its start way back in 1853, organized by five founding members. It hit a bit of a rough patch, lapsing for a few years, but ten dedicated…
Birdville Cemetery · 2.4 mi · Historical Marker
You're driving past Birdville Cemetery, the final resting place for generations of Tarrant County pioneers. Look for the oldest marked grave here: Wiley Wilda Potts, born in <say-as interpret-as="date"…
Birdville Church of Christ · 2.4 mi · Historical Marker
You're driving past the site of the Birdville Church of Christ in Haltom City. It all started on February 26, 1852, when twelve charter members held the first service, just after Birdville became the Tarrant County…
Judge Benjamin Franklin Barkley · 2.5 mi · Historical Marker
(1822 - 1882) In 1855 Benjamin F. Barkley, a Kentucky physician, with his wife Malinda Elizabeth Duncan (1827-1917) and their children settled on a farm at Birdville. There he practiced medicine, became a lawyer, and a…
William Letchworth Hurst · 2.5 mi · Historical Marker
You're driving past the town named for William Letchworth Hurst, a man who saw action in the Civil War. He fought near Vicksburg with the Sixty-First Tennessee Infantry. After his unit surrendered, he rejoined and was…
Archibald Franklin Leonard · 2.5 mi · Historical Marker
You're driving past Archibald Franklin Leonard. A native of Pennsylvania, Archibald Franklin Leonard (1816-1876) moved to Missouri in the 1830s where he married Mary Ann Foster (1822-1904) in 1839. In 1845, along with…
Pioneer Birdville Schools · 2.5 mi · Historical Marker
You're driving through Haltom City, and right here is the site of Birdville Hill. This spot was the heart of Tarrant County for a few years, serving as its first county seat from 1851 to 1856. But it's also where…
Smithfield Baptist Church · 2.5 mi · Historical Marker
You're driving past the site of Smithfield Baptist Church. It got its start way back in 1895 with just 12 charter members and Reverend G.W. Green at the helm. They built their first sanctuary right here in 1902, thanks…
Smithfield Masonic Lodge No. 455 A.F. & A.M. · 2.5 mi · Historical Marker
You're driving past the site of the Smithfield Masonic Lodge, a fraternal organization that started right here in 1875. Originally called the Grand Prairie Lodge, they met in a church until they built their first lodge…
Smithfield Church of Christ · 2.5 mi · Historical Marker
You're driving past the Smithfield Church of Christ, a congregation with roots stretching back to October 25th, 1888. That's when J.E. and Mary E. Turner deeded land to trustees for a new Christian Church in the…
Garage Bands at the Roller Rink · 2.6 mi
Haltom City's loudest contribution to Texas music started a block from the high school, at the Holiday Roller Skating Rink at 2920 Carson Street. Beginning in May 1964, the local Jaycees and KFJZ disc jockey Mark…
Hightower, Alfred Madison · 2.6 mi · Historical Marker
You're driving past the spot where Alfred Madison Hightower settled in Smithfield back in 1858. He arrived from Illinois with his family and quickly became a rancher. When the Civil War broke out, Hightower, despite…
Smith, Eli · 2.6 mi · Historical Marker
You're driving past the site where Eli Smith, a Missouri native, settled with his family in Tarrant County back in 1859. He married Sarah Hightower in 1868. But Eli's real legacy began around 1876, when he donated part…
Smithfield Cemetery · 2.6 mi · Historical Marker
You're driving past Smithfield Cemetery, a final resting place with roots stretching back to the 1870s. It all started when Eli Smith, who came to Texas from Missouri around 1859, donated part of his farm for this…
Smithfield Methodist Church · 2.6 mi · Historical Marker
You're driving past the site of Smithfield Methodist Church, but its story starts way back in 1856. William and Mary Turner settled here, and legend says William built simple log benches at his home for neighbors to…
Florence School · 2.7 mi · Historical Marker
You're driving past the site of Florence School, which began in 1890 as 'Green Glade.' In 1903, a trustee donated land for a new schoolhouse. This one-room building served grades one through eight and even hosted…
Hadley, Erma Jean Chansler Johnson · 2.8 mi · Tsha Handbook
Erma Jean Chansler Johnson Hadley, born on October 6, 1942, in Leggett, Texas, daughter of Leondus "Leon" H. and Thelma (Davis) Chansler, was the first African American from Leggett to graduate from college. She was…
Before Fort Worth, the County Capital Was Birdville · 2.8 mi
Just off the southwest edge of North Richland Hills lies a name that once outranked Fort Worth: Birdville. When the Texas legislature created Tarrant County in 1849, it ordered that the winning site in the first…
Seven Votes, Some Fistfights, and a Stolen County Seat · 2.8 mi
The fight over which town would rule Tarrant County turned ugly right near here. By the mid-1850s, fast-growing Fort Worth wanted the county seat that Birdville held, and legislator Isaac Duke Parker pushed through a…
Hurst, TX · 2.8 mi · Tsha Handbook
Hurst, just to the north of Fort Worth, is on State Highways 121 and 10, north of the West Fork of the Trinity River in the northeastern quadrant of Tarrant County. By the middle or late 1840s farmers were beginning to…
The City Hall Built by Hand for $1,200 · 2.8 mi
When Watauga incorporated in 1958 it had almost nothing a city is supposed to have, no real budget, no staff, and certainly no money for a fire truck or a municipal building. So the new town did the only thing it could:…
St. Luke United Methodist Church · 2.8 mi · Historical Marker
You're driving through Haltom City, and right here is the site of St. Luke United Methodist Church. It began in 1928 as Birdville Methodist Church, with just seventeen members. For years, services were sporadic, but by…
Willow Springs: The Congregation Older Than the Town · 2.9 mi
The oldest institution tied to Watauga isn't in Watauga at all anymore. It's the Willow Springs congregation, gathered by settler families in this area in the years around the Civil War and formally reorganized in 1867…
Watauga Presbyterian Church · 2.9 mi · Historical Marker
You're driving past the site of Watauga Presbyterian Church, though you won't see much here today. This congregation started way back in the 1850s as the Willow Springs Cumberland Presbyterian Church. It was reorganized…
Watauga, TX · 2.9 mi · Tsha Handbook
You're driving through Watauga, a community named by settlers who brought the word from Cherokee settlements in Tennessee. Watauga itself is a Cherokee word meaning 'village of many springs.' This area wasn't much of a…
The Rise of Little Saigon · 3.0 mi
As you drive down Belknap Street, you’re witnessing a story of urban transformation. In the 1970s and ‘80s, this was a commercial strip in decline, full of aging buildings and struggling businesses. But a new community…
Engineered at the Crossroads · 3.0 mi
Haltom City is a textbook example of a city engineered by its highways. Its very existence is owed to the civil engineering that created the modern commuter suburb. It started with two key arteries. The Denton Highway,…
The Haltom Theatre · 3.0 mi
If you look for it at Belknap and Denton Highway, you can still see a lit piece of Haltom City's past: the Haltom Theater. G. W. Haltom built it for thirty-five thousand dollars and opened the doors at six o'clock on…
Haltom City, TX · 3.0 mi
Haltom City is home to a public library that serves as the regional library for the city. It's a well-known partner of the Fort Worth Public Library. In 2011, an extension of Tarrant County College Northeast Campus, the…
G.W. Haltom's Picture Palace on Belknap · 3.1 mi
At 5601 East Belknap Street sits the Haltom Theater, the one landmark the town's namesake actually built here himself. George W. Haltom spent about thirty-five thousand dollars to put up the 716-seat single-screen movie…
The Stage Manager Who Never Left · 3.1 mi
If you pass the old Haltom Theater on East Belknap after dark, the people who run it will tell you it isn't quite empty. The legend attached to the restored 1940s movie house holds that it's haunted by J.P. Harrison,…
Isham Chapel Methodist Church · 3.1 mi · Historical Marker
You're driving through Hurst, and just off to the side of the road is the site of Isham Chapel Methodist Church. This congregation got its start back in the 1870s with just eleven members. It was named for its founding…
The Helicopter Plant that Built a City · 3.2 mi
Right near the edge of Hurst sits the single most important reason the city exists in its modern form: the Bell Helicopter plant. When it opened in 1951, it was a game-changer. Hurst was a village of a few hundred…
Engineering the Huey · 3.2 mi
The explosive growth of Hurst was powered by a marvel of aerospace engineering built right here: the Bell UH-1 Iroquois, or 'Huey.' Bell's plant opened in 1951, and four years later, on February 23, 1955, the Army…
Nine Springs That Still Earn the Town Its Name · 3.2 mi
If you ever wonder why a Cherokee phrase about many springs got pinned to this prairie suburb, walk over to Capp Smith Park at 5800 Robin Drive. The park's lake isn't just a hole dug and filled from a pipe. The city…
The King of the Malls · 3.2 mi
If Bell Helicopter built Hurst's neighborhoods, North East Mall built its commercial identity. It opened on March 25, 1971, anchored by a Leonard's that had been dedicated the summer before, with eighty stores inside -…
Hurst, TX · 3.2 mi
One of Hurst's most notable landmarks is the North East Mall, which opened in March 1972 and is the third largest mall in the state of Texas. This premier shopping center is owned by the Indianapolis-based Simon…
The Tri-City Partnership · 3.2 mi
You'll often hear Hurst mentioned in the same breath as its neighbors, Euless and Bedford. Locals don't just say 'Hurst'; they say 'HEB.' This isn't just a casual nickname; it's a unique and defining feature of this…
The Jeweler Who Named a Town · 3.4 mi
The town spreading out around you carries the name of a Fort Worth jeweler who never really lived here. George Washington Haltom was born in an Arkansas log house in 1872, decided as a boy picking cotton that he would…
When This Was the County Seat (Before the Whiskey) · 3.4 mi
Tucked inside today's Haltom City is the old community of Birdville, named for Texas Ranger captain Jonathan Bird, and in 1850 it won the vote to become Tarrant County's very first seat of government. For a few years it…
The First Courthouse Site and the Pioneer Graves · 3.4 mi
Near 6108 Broadway Avenue stands a marker noting the spot where Tarrant County's first courthouse once stood in Birdville, back when this ground governed the whole county. A short walk away is Birdville Cemetery, the…
From the Haltom Buffaloes to a Super Bowl Ring · 3.4 mi
The Haltom High School Buffaloes have sent players to the pros, and the most decorated of them is offensive lineman Halapoulivaati Vaitai, who suited up here in the orange and black alongside his two younger twin…
Where Worn-Out Jet Brakes Get a Second Life · 3.4 mi
Behind an unassuming industrial wall in Haltom City is one of the more specialized engineering shops in North Texas: a 110,000-square-foot Collins Aerospace facility that opened around 2020 as a hub for aircraft wheel…
Haltom City, TX · 3.4 mi
Nestled in the heart of the Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex, Haltom City is an inner suburb of Fort Worth with a unique geographic advantage. Just six miles from downtown Fort Worth, 30 miles from the American Airlines…
The Plant That Turned Farmland Into a Boomtown · 3.5 mi
Hurst stayed a dusty crossroads of sand pits and a fading rail line until one announcement changed everything. In 1951 Bell Helicopter said it would build a $3 million plant right here, north of Fort Worth, and the news…
The Spinning Bar That Made Helicopters Behave · 3.5 mi
The reason a Bell helicopter could hover steadily instead of pitching itself out of the sky comes down to one elegant piece of engineering, and the company that perfected it built its empire here in Hurst. In 1941 Larry…
The Man Who Traded Land for a Train Stop · 3.5 mi
This whole city is named after a horse trader who knew the value of a railroad. William Letchworth Hurst, born in 1833, came from Tennessee and settled north of Fort Worth, making his living trading and speculating in…
Belknap's Little Saigon · 3.6 mi
Drive the East Belknap corridor through Haltom City and the storefronts tell a quieter chapter of Texas history. Beginning in the late 1970s, after the end of the Vietnam War, Southeast Asian refugees resettled across…
A Park Named for the Cattle-Drive Road · 3.8 mi
Hurst's biggest park, the 50-acre Chisholm Park at 2200 Norwood Drive, carries the name of one of the most famous cattle routes in American history. The Chisholm Trail was the highway of the open range from 1867 to…
The Cheneys Built the Garden of Eden · 4.0 mi
Straddling the line between Fort Worth and Haltom City, in a bend of the Trinity River, the Cheney family had farmed this land since arriving from Kentucky and Tennessee in the 1830s. After emancipation, Major Cheney,…
Arwine Cemetery · 4.3 mi · Historical Marker
You're driving past the Arwine Cemetery, a final resting place for early Tarrant County settlers. Daniel Arwine, a former deputy U.S. Marshall, arrived here from Indiana in 1865. In 1879, he deeded land for a school,…
New Trinity Cemetery · 4.4 mi · Historical Marker
You're driving through Haltom City, and right here is the New Trinity Cemetery. When Rev. Greene Fretwell, a former slave, died in 1886, there was no burial ground for Black residents in this part of Tarrant County. His…
A Star in the Window, a Marker by the Road · 4.4 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…
The Graveyard That Started With a Buried Thief · 4.5 mi
Riley Cemetery's origin story is one of those frontier tales that's hard to pin down but too good to lose. Jonathan Riley, born around 1791, brought his family from Kentucky to this corner of the prairie around 1856.…
Ransom, Dr. Riley Andrew · 4.5 mi · Historical Marker
You're passing through Haltom City, but the story of Dr. Riley Andrew Ransom takes us back to Fort Worth. Born in Kentucky, he studied medicine and then came to Gainesville, Texas, in the early 1900s. There, he opened…
Country Breakfast in a Room Full of Lucy · 4.5 mi
For a plate of food that tastes like a Texas grandmother's kitchen, locals point to the Bluebonnet Cafe at 2223-A Haltom Road. The family-owned diner opened in July 1994 and has spent three decades serving the kind of…
Riley Cemetery · 4.5 mi · Historical Marker
You're driving through Colleyville, past the site of Riley Cemetery. Legend says this burial ground began around 1856 when Jonathan Riley, who received this land grant in 1863, gave permission to bury a thief killed…
Harper's Rest Cemetery · 4.5 mi · Historical Marker
You're driving past Harper's Rest Cemetery, a final resting place with a story that begins with a stranger's loss. In 1894, Henry Jackson Harper and his family settled here. Their peaceful farm became a place of…
Randol Mill · 4.6 mi · Historical Marker
You're driving past the site of Randol Mill, a vital hub for this community back in the day. In 1856, Archibald Leonard built a dam and a grain mill right here. It quickly became more than just a place to grind grain;…
Site of Ray-Manship Cemetery · 4.6 mi · Historical Marker
You're driving past the former site of the Ray-Manship Cemetery. It held twelve known burials and many unmarked graves of early Tarrant County settlers. The earliest known burial was Sarah Clark in 1883, and William Ray…
Isham Cemetery · 4.8 mi · Historical Marker
You're driving past Isham Cemetery, a resting place founded by a Georgia preacher named W. Marion Isham. He and his family arrived in Tarrant County around 1870, and Isham immediately donated an acre for a community…
Site of Oak Grove Methodist Church · 4.9 mi · Historical Marker
You're driving past the site of Oak Grove Methodist Church, founded back in early 1886. Named for the trees that surrounded it, this church started with 30 members and was part of the Keller Circuit. They even built a…
The Town That Carried Tennessee in Its Name · 5.0 mi
The suburb spreading around you got its name homesick. Farmers began settling this stretch of northeast Tarrant County in the late 1840s, and a good share of them had come from Bedford County, Tennessee, so that is what…
Bypassed Twice, and Nearly Erased · 5.0 mi
For a town that had grown to nearly the size of a small city, Bedford's fall was fast and entirely about transportation. The trade and the people followed the rails, and twice the rails went around Bedford. In 1901 the…
Bedford's Heisman Quarterback · 5.0 mi
One of the most electric quarterbacks of his generation got his start right here. Kyler Murray was born in Bedford on August 7, 1997, into a football family, and even though he became a Texas high school legend up the…
The Schoolhouse That Survived Fire, Then Arson · 5.2 mi
At 2400 School Lane stands the Old Bedford School, and the ground under it has watched buildings burn before. Bedford College, a combination high school and junior college, opened on this site in 1882 and burned in…
Bedford School · 5.2 mi · Historical Marker
You're driving through Bedford, and right around here, education has a fiery past. The first school in this area met in a log building way back in the early 1860s. After the Civil War, classes moved to a frame building,…
Barbecue in Colleyville's Oldest Storefront · 5.3 mi
If you want a meal with some Colleyville history baked in, Red Barn Bar-B-Que at 4913 Colleyville Boulevard is the spot. When Von Husbands opened it in 2005, fulfilling a longtime dream of running his own place, he set…
The Doctor Who Named the Town After Himself · 5.4 mi
The town you're rolling through carries a country doctor's name. Lilburn Howard Colley, born in 1843, was a Missouri native and a Union Army veteran who earned his medical degree and brought his family to Texas in 1880,…
When This Was the Dairy Center of Tarrant County · 5.4 mi
The shopping district around Colleyville Town Center sits on what was once the engine of one of Texas's biggest dairy regions. William Henry Bogart started milking cows here on a 158-acre farm his father Aiken had…
Colleyville, TX · 5.4 mi
Once a small farm town in the 19th century, Colleyville has come a long way. It was originally known as Bransford when Dr. Lilburn Howard Colley, a prominent area physician and Union Army veteran, settled there in 1880.…
Texas HS Baseball Leaders 2026: Carter-Riverside (Fort Worth) · 5.4 mi
Carter-Riverside (Fort Worth, TX) placed on the 4A Texas high school baseball stat leaderboards for the 2026 season: Sergio Casillas (0.583 avg).
The Fire Hall a House Fire Built · 5.4 mi
Colleyville's first fire hall exists because a house burned to the ground with nothing to stop it. In February 1954, a two-story home on McDonwell School Road caught fire and was a total loss, and the helplessness of…
Tim Cole · 5.5 mi · Historical Marker
You're driving past the site connected to the story of Tim Cole, a man who refused to admit guilt for a crime he didn't commit. Born in Brenham in 1960, Cole served in the Army and attended Texas Tech. In 1986, he was…
Dr. Lilburn Howard Colley · 5.5 mi · Historical Marker
You're driving past the namesake of Colleyville! This town owes its name to Dr. Lilburn Howard Colley, a Civil War veteran who moved his family from Missouri to Texas in 1880. They settled near what would become…
Mount Olivet Cemetery · 5.5 mi · Historical Marker
You're cruising past Mount Olivet Cemetery in Fort Worth, a place with a story as big as its 130 acres. Founded in 1907 by Flavious and Johnnie McPeak, it was inspired by a cemetery they saw in Nashville. This wasn't…
Bedford, TX · 5.5 mi · Tsha Handbook
You're driving through Bedford, Texas, a town with roots stretching back to the 1870s. It all started when Weldon Bobo moved here from Tennessee and opened a general store and gristmill. He and some local farmers…
Amon Carter Riverside High School and Riverside I.S.D. · 5.5 mi · Historical Marker
You're driving through Fort Worth's Riverside neighborhood, the site of a community school system that started way back in 1876. <break time="400ms"/> It began as a one-room schoolhouse built by Dr. Eagle, a retired…
Robert David Law · 5.6 mi · Historical Marker
You're driving past the Fort Worth home of Specialist Four Robert David Law. Law, a scout observer in Vietnam, volunteered for a dangerous intelligence mission near the Cambodian border. On February 22nd, 1969, when a…
The Freeway That Built a City · 5.6 mi
The road you may be driving on right now, Highway 183, is the single most important piece of engineering in Bedford's history. For decades this was an ordinary two-lane highway stitching small towns together. But…
Red Ball Gas House Explosion · 5.6 mi · Tsha Handbook
You're driving through Tarrant County, not far from where a routine gas delivery turned into a terrifying inferno. On the evening of July 31, 1968, a tanker truck was refilling a storage tank at the Red Ball Gas House…
Mosier Valley, TX · 5.6 mi · Tsha Handbook
Mosier Valley was established in the 1870s on the north bank of the Trinity River just south of the sites of Hurst, Euless, and Bedford in Tarrant County. It was founded by Robert and Dilsie Johnson and ten other…
Niles City, TX · 5.6 mi · Tsha Handbook
Niles City, three miles north of the business center of Fort Worth in central Tarrant County, was incorporated in February 1911. The town was called "the richest little city in the state of Texas" because of the high…
The Boys Ranch · 5.6 mi
As you drive around Bedford, you'll see signs for Boys Ranch Park, one of the city's largest green spaces. The name isn't a rustic theme - it comes from a real place that shaped this community. In 1949 the Variety Club…
The Wartime Highway Name That Waited Sixty Years · 5.6 mi
The World War Two Veterans Memorial Highway is a name with an odd history. On August first, nineteen forty four, a Texas highway minute order named U S Highway Eighty the Veterans of World War Two Highway, all the way…
Barkley, Benjamin Franklin · 5.6 mi · Tsha Handbook
You're driving through Tarrant County, near what used to be Birdville, the original county seat. Right here, in the years after the Civil War, Dr. Benjamin Franklin Barkley was a lightning rod for controversy. A…
Fourteenth Texas Cavalry · 5.6 mi · Tsha Handbook
You're driving through North Texas, and right here in what was Tarrant County, a cavalry regiment was born for the Confederacy. In the fall of 1861, Middleton Tate Johnson raised his "Mounted Volunteers." These men,…
Hicks Field · 5.6 mi · Tsha Handbook
You're driving near Fort Worth, and right here is the site of Hicks Field. Back in 1916, this was Taliaferro Field, a crucial training ground for Canadian pilots in World War I. It was the largest aerial gunnery school…
Parker, Isaac · 5.6 mi · Tsha Handbook
You're driving through Tarrant County, and right here is where Isaac Parker lived near Birdville. Parker was a key figure in early Texas, serving in Congress and the first four legislatures. But he's perhaps most…
Parker, Isaac Duke · 5.6 mi · Tsha Handbook
You're driving through Tarrant County, near Birdville, where Isaac Duke Parker lived most of his life. His family has deep Texas roots, tied to the very frontier. In 1836, his grandfather was killed and his cousin,…
The H-E-B Partnership · 5.6 mi
You're currently in Bedford, but you're also in a place locals call 'H-E-B.' That stands for Hurst, Euless, and Bedford, three neighboring cities that share a unique identity. While they are independent municipalities…
Bedford, TX · 5.6 mi
Prominent highways in Bedford include State Highway 121 and State Highway 183, also known as Airport Freeway. This highway was the main thoroughfare to the Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport in the early years of…
Griffin, William Henry · 5.6 mi · Tsha Handbook
You're driving through Tarrant County, Texas, a place that saw action during the Civil War. William Henry Griffin, a West Point graduate and seasoned engineer, settled here in 1858. When war broke out, he tried to raise…
Smith, William Ruthven · 5.6 mi · Tsha Handbook
You're driving through Tarrant County, near where Camp Bowie once stood. Right here, in <say-as interpret-as="date" format="y">1918</say-as>, this area was a hub for the Thirty-sixth Infantry Division, nicknamed the…
Birdville, TX · 5.6 mi · Tsha Handbook
Birdville, in central Tarrant County, the first settlement in the county. It was established in 1841 and named for Capt. Jonathan Bird. Birdville was a functioning settlement by 1848, and its earliest residents were…
Peden, TX · 5.6 mi · Tsha Handbook
Peden was on the western shore of Eagle Mountain Lake, south of Swift Branch, two miles north of Azle, and twenty miles northwest of Fort Worth in northwestern Tarrant County. Before Eagle Mountain Lake was constructed,…
Smithfield, TX · 5.6 mi · Tsha Handbook
Smithfield, in north central Tarrant County, was probably established before 1870 and was originally called Zion. A post office opened there in 1878. In 1887 the St. Louis and Southwestern Railway built through the area…
Goree, Edwin Sue · 5.6 mi · Tsha Handbook
You're driving through North Texas, and right here, in what was once Thorp Springs, began the career of Edwin Sue Goree. Born in 1884, Goree dedicated her life to bringing books to Texans. From 1931 to 1940, she…
Johnson Creek (Tarrant County) · 5.6 mi · Tsha Handbook
You're driving through Tarrant County right now, near the city of Arlington, and the creek you might cross is Johnson Creek. It was probably named for Middleton Tate Johnson, a settler who arrived in the early 1840s.…
Middleton, Alfred K. · 5.6 mi · Tsha Handbook
You're driving through Tarrant County, near where Johnson's Station used to be. This was home to Dr. Alfred K. Middleton, a physician who arrived in Texas back in 1851. He practiced medicine and farmed here, even…
Tarrant County College · 5.6 mi · Tsha Handbook
You're driving through Tarrant County right now, and you're surrounded by a massive educational institution. Back in 1965, voters here decided to form their own junior college district. The first campus, the South…
Maddox, Thomas Benton · 5.6 mi · Tsha Handbook
You're driving through Tarrant County, near what was once Birdville. Right here lived Thomas Benton Maddox, a farmer who, after moving to Texas, served in the Twenty-third Texas Legislature. He was a farmer, a…
Jellico, TX · 5.6 mi · Tsha Handbook
Jellico was near the intersection of Farm roads 1709 and 1938, in the area of present Southlake in northeast Tarrant County. Robert Emmett Wilson, founder of the settlement, purchased property in the W. R. Eaves survey…
Bedford Cemetery · 5.7 mi · Historical Marker
You're driving through Bedford, and right here is the old Bedford Cemetery, likely first used by pioneers in the 1860s. The earliest marked grave belongs to Elizabeth Bobo, who died in 1871. For decades, this was the…
Bedford Church of Christ · 5.7 mi · Historical Marker
You're driving through Bedford, and right here is the site of the Bedford Church of Christ. It started around 1874, born from the Spring Garden Church of Christ. Originally called New Hope, the first meetinghouse went…
Riverside Methodist Church · 5.7 mi · Historical Marker
You're driving past the site of Riverside United Methodist Church in Fort Worth. Its story starts way back in March 1888, with just ten people and a traveling preacher holding Sunday School in an abandoned saloon. They…
A Farmhouse Cast From Concrete, Block by Block · 5.8 mi
The Bidault House at 1416 Glade Road is the rare farmhouse you could call an engineering experiment. When French farmer Anthelm Bidault started building it in 1905, he didn't frame it in wood like his neighbors. He…
The Frenchman Who Planted a Vineyard on the Prairie · 5.8 mi
Long before this was a suburb of luxury rooftops, a Frenchman was growing wine grapes out here. Anthelm Bidault, born in France in 1862, settled near the Pleasant Run community and began cultivating orchards and…
The Railroad Town That Colleyville Erased · 5.8 mi
There used to be a busier town than Colleyville right here, and almost nobody remembers it. Bransford grew up around 1870 around a general store and post office run by Felix G. Bransford, and for a stretch it was the…
Bedford Reunion · 5.8 mi · Historical Marker
You're driving through Bedford, where settlers from Tennessee arrived in the 1870s. They quickly established New Hope Church in 1874, which also served as a school. By 1882, they even founded Bedford College, a private…
Bransford · 5.8 mi · Historical Marker
You're driving through Colleyville, but just a few miles back, you passed the site of Bransford. It started as a post office in the late 1800s, named for Felix Grundy Bransford. In 1889, the post office moved to a new…
Pleasant Run School · 5.8 mi · Historical Marker
You're driving past the site of Pleasant Run School, a place that educated Tarrant County kids for nearly a century. Early settlers remember a log schoolhouse here as early as 1870. By 1877, 45 students were learning,…
The Bidault House · 5.9 mi · Historical Marker
You're driving past the Bidault House in Colleyville, built by a French immigrant with a unique vision. Anthlem Bidault, a farmer and winemaker, designed and constructed this home himself using molded concrete blocks.…
Colleyville, TX · 6.0 mi
On January 15, 2022, a significant event unfolded in Colleyville when a hostage crisis occurred at Congregation Beth Israel, a local synagogue. Four hostages were held for several hours before police intervened, fatally…
The Yankee Doctor of Colleyville · 6.0 mi
The man this town is named for was a bit of a paradox. Dr. Lilburn Howard Colley came to Texas from Missouri in 1880, a trained physician ready to serve a new community. He was also a Union Army veteran — he enlisted at…
The Standoff at Congregation Beth Israel · 6.0 mi
On a quiet Saturday in January 2022, the world’s attention turned to Colleyville. A man armed with a gun entered the Congregation Beth Israel synagogue during services and took four people, including the rabbi, hostage.…
From Iron Horse to Bicycle Path · 6.0 mi
The path of a key piece of 19th-century technology still shapes your drive through Colleyville. In 1888 the Cotton Belt — the St. Louis Southwestern — pushed its line between Fort Worth and Grapevine straight through a…
The Vote for Independence · 6.0 mi
Why is Colleyville its own city, and not a piece of somebody else's? The answer lies in a decision made in January 1956. After World War II, cities across Tarrant County were racing to grow by annexing the…
Spring Garden School · 6.1 mi · Historical Marker
You're driving through Bedford, Texas, where a little schoolhouse once stood, serving the children of early settlers. In the fall of 1865, Samuel Witten, Levin Moody, Milton Moore, and Caleb Smith came together to build…
Pleasant Run Baptist Church · 6.1 mi · Historical Marker
You're driving past the site of Pleasant Run Baptist Church. This congregation got its start way back on April 7, 1877. For its first few years, the members gathered in borrowed spaces – first a lodge hall, then the…
Colleyville, TX · 6.1 mi · Tsha Handbook
You're driving through Colleyville, a suburb of Fort Worth. This town owes its name to Dr. Hilburn Howard Colley, who moved here from Missouri in 1880. He practiced medicine in this area for forty years. A community…
The Town the Railroad Left Behind · 6.2 mi
Hard as it is to believe driving through the suburb today, Bedford was once a boomtown. In the 1880s and 90s it grew to a thousand or even two thousand people, larger than any town in Tarrant County except Fort Worth…
The Schoolhouse Saved by Two Votes to Spare · 6.2 mi
In 1914, the people of Bedford voted on a bond to build themselves a proper school. The measure passed by the narrowest of margins, twenty-eight votes to two, and the Old Bedford School opened the next year, in 1915. It…
WBAP-TV - Channel 5 · 6.2 mi · Historical Marker
You're driving past the site of WBAP-TV, the fifth television station to sign on in Texas! Founded by Fort Worth Star-Telegram publisher Amon G. Carter, its very first program was a public appearance by President Harry…
Mosier Valley Fought to Keep Its School · 6.3 mi
On the north bank of the Trinity River, south of Euless, Hurst, and Bedford, Robert and Dilsie Johnson and ten other emancipated families founded Mosier Valley in the 1870s, on bottomland the Mosier and Lee plantation…
A Homesick Name From Tennessee · 6.3 mi
Bedford carries a name brought west by homesick settlers. In the 1870s a Tennessee man named Weldon Bobo moved to this part of Tarrant County and set up a general store and a gristmill. When he and the surrounding…
The Boys Ranch in the Suburbs · 6.3 mi
For nearly a decade, one of the largest things in Bedford was a home for boys. Starting in 1949, a Dallas charity ran the Bedford Boys Ranch, a working farm and dairy spread across more than two hundred acres, with…
The Suburb Built by an Airport · 6.3 mi
Bedford's modern existence is owed largely to one enormous piece of engineering just to its east. When Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport opened in 1974, it sprawled across about seventeen thousand five hundred…
Spring Garden Community · 6.3 mi · Historical Marker
You're driving past the site of Spring Garden, a community that started in 1854 when Samuel Cecil Holiday Witten arrived from Missouri. He and Milton Moore built a schoolhouse in 1865, naming it for his hometown. This…
Mosier Valley School · 6.4 mi · Historical Marker
You're driving through Euless, near where Mosier Valley began. Back in 1870, former slaves Robert and Dilsie Johnson got this 40-acre plot as a wedding gift. Soon, other freedmen settled here, forming a community. By…
Saint John Missionary Baptist Church · 6.4 mi · Historical Marker
You're driving past the site of Saint John Missionary Baptist Church in Euless. Back in 1874, a small group of former slaves gathered at a home to organize this congregation, originally called Oak Grove Baptist Church.…
Texas HS Baseball Leaders 2026: Diamond Hill-Jarvis (Fort Worth) · 6.5 mi
Diamond Hill-Jarvis (Fort Worth, TX) placed on the 4A Texas high school baseball stat leaderboards for the 2026 season: Diego Basurto (0.533 avg, 1 HR); Devin Franco (0.475 avg).
The Cattle-Serum Chemist Who Made a Town · 6.5 mi
Blue Mound grew up around the businesses of one man, a Scottish immigrant named John Kennedy, no relation to the president. In 1920 Kennedy founded a company called Globe Laboratories to make a serum that protected…
The Warplanes Made of Wood · 6.5 mi
There is a clever bit of engineering buried in Blue Mound's aircraft history. The training planes the plant built in huge numbers during the war were made largely of wood, not metal, and that was on purpose. Aluminum…
Keller · 6.5 mi · Historical Marker
You're driving through Keller, a town born from the railroad. Look around, and imagine a time when the Texas & Pacific Railroad was the lifeblood of this region. Back in 1881, a druggist named H.W. Wood laid out 40…
Blue Mound, TX (Denton County) · 6.5 mi · Tsha Handbook
You're driving past Blue Mound, a community founded by German immigrants in the late 1800s. Originally called Indian Mound, it was renamed for the pretty blue prairie flowers that grew here. In 1876, Herman Christian…
Peterson Family Cemetery · 6.5 mi · Historical Marker
You're driving past the Peterson Family Cemetery, a quiet resting place for one of Tarrant County's early Swedish settlers. John Peterson arrived in America from Sweden in 1868, and his wife Thilda joined him two years…
From Cattle Serum to Warplanes to Helicopters · 6.6 mi
The same founder, John Kennedy, took an even bigger swing in 1940 when he launched the Globe Aircraft Company near Blue Mound. During the Second World War the plant turned out around six hundred training planes for the…
Double Springs to Athol to Keller in One Decade · 6.6 mi
The town you're rolling into changed its name twice before it stuck. Settlers first gathered a few miles west at a spot called Double Springs, named for the two springs that watered an early cluster of families, a…
Old Town Keller, Built Around a Boxcar Stop · 6.6 mi
This stretch of Old Town Keller, running along US 377 just north and south of FM 1709, is the original townsite, and it was laid out for one reason: to sit on the railroad. After the Texas and Pacific stop opened in the…
The Widow Who Led 25 Families to Bear Creek · 6.6 mi
Out where Bancroft Road meets J.T. Ottinger Road lies Mount Gilead Cemetery, the resting place of the pioneers who settled this corner of Tarrant County years before there was a Keller. The burial ground grew out of a…
Stone Cairns Over the Pioneer Dead · 6.6 mi
Walk the older rows of Mount Gilead Cemetery and you'll notice something you won't see in a modern memorial park: low piles of stacked stone heaped over some of the oldest graves. These are burial cairns, mounds the…
From a Keller Diamond to the Big Leagues · 6.6 mi
The ballfields at Fossil Ridge High School here in Keller produced a genuine major leaguer. Sheldon Neuse, born in 1994, came up through Fossil Ridge before heading to the University of Oklahoma, where he hit well…
A City Built on 'No' · 6.6 mi
Blue Mound didn't start as a subdivision. It started as a cattle vaccine plant. In 1920 a Scottish immigrant named John Kennedy founded Globe Laboratories to make serum that would immunize cattle against blackleg. In…
The Quiet Engineering That Keeps Keller's Taps Pressurized · 6.6 mi
Keller has no river running through it and no big reservoir of its own, so getting water to roughly 45,000 people is a feat of plumbing on a city scale. The city doesn't treat its own supply; it buys finished drinking…
Blue Mound, TX · 6.6 mi
The city of Blue Mound, Texas, got its name from a nearby hill. The settlement was initially known as Saginaw Park, but later took the name Blue Mound after this geographical feature.
Harrison Cemetery · 6.6 mi · Historical Marker
You're driving past Harrison Cemetery, a small burial ground that started as a private family plot. The earliest grave here dates back to 1864, for Mary E. Harrison. Later, R.A. Randol, operator of Randol Mill, bought…
The Night a Tornado Came in a Winter Storm · 6.7 mi
Tornadoes are a spring problem in North Texas, which is exactly what made this one strange. On a night in March 2009, in the middle of a savage winter storm, a tornado dropped down into Colleyville, a rare cold-season…
Meadowbrook Methodist Church · 6.7 mi · Historical Marker
You're driving through Fort Worth, heading east. Right here, you're passing the site of Meadowbrook United Methodist Church. Its story starts way back in 1911, with two small mission congregations: Sycamore Heights and…
The Creek That Named, Watered, and Washed the Town · 6.8 mi
Bear Creek has shaped this place from the start. Its springs gave the original Double Springs settlement its water and its name, and the modern city wears the creek everywhere, from Bear Creek Parkway running past Town…
Keller, TX · 6.8 mi · Tsha Handbook
You're driving through Keller, Texas, a town that owes its name to a railroad official. Back in 1879, settlers were moving their homes closer to where the Texas and Pacific Railway was expected to build. They called…
Handley United Methodist Church · 6.8 mi · Historical Marker
You're driving through Handley, a town that started with the railroad back in 1877. And right here, you're passing the Handley United Methodist Church. This congregation began the same year, with Reverend J.J. Cannafax…
A Banker's House That Tells the Whole Town's Story · 6.9 mi
At 133 Bates Street in Old Town Keller, on what the city has remade as its Festival Street, stands the Keller History Museum, housed in a home nearing a century old. The house has its own small migration story: it…
Witten Cemetery · 6.9 mi · Historical Marker
You're driving past the Witten Cemetery, a final resting place for a family with deep Texas roots. Samuel Cecil Holiday Witten arrived in Texas in 1854, becoming a successful landowner and serving as Justice of the…
Handley Church of Christ · 6.9 mi · Historical Marker
You're driving past Handley, a Fort Worth neighborhood that got its name from the Texas & Pacific Railroad back in 1876. Before that, it was called Turkey Knob! For a few years, Protestants here shared a union church…
Renamed for a Foreman's Bargain · 7.0 mi
When you stand in Old Town Keller with the shops and restaurants lining the tracks, you're standing in a town that renamed itself to get a train to stop. It didn't start here. The first settlement in this area was…
Burgers Where the Ice Once Came In · 7.0 mi
At 148 South Main Street, smack in Old Town Keller, the Old Town Ice House leans into a piece of history most people never think about: the ice trade. When Keller grew up around the railroad in the 1880s, America's ice…
Keller, TX · 7.0 mi
Settlers established Keller in the early 1850s, drawn to the wooded region due to its proximity to the Trinity River water supply and abundant farmland. The town became a stop on the Texas and Pacific Railway, further…
Sanderson, William Alfred · 7.0 mi · Historical Marker
You're driving past the former stomping grounds of William Alfred Sanderson. Born in England in 1819, Sanderson arrived in Texas in 1841, eventually settling in Tarrant County in 1847. He became a successful farmer and…
Ayres Cemetery · 7.0 mi · Historical Marker
You're driving past the Ayres Cemetery, a quiet resting place established by one of Tarrant County's earliest officials. In 1861, Benjamin Patton Ayres and his wife Emily bought a large farm here and set aside two acres…
Texas HS Baseball Playoff Leaders 2026: Keller (Keller) · 7.1 mi
Keller put 3 players on the statewide leaderboards of the 2026 Texas high school baseball playoffs. Cole Koeninger had 56 strikeouts (2nd in the state), 16 hits (15th in the state), 15 runs (17th in the state), 3 home…
Keller, TX · 7.1 mi
In the early 1850s, settlers established Keller, a town that became a stop on the Texas and Pacific Railway. The settlers were drawn to the wooded region due to its proximity to the Trinity River water supply and…
Texas HS Baseball Playoff Hits 2026: Keller (Keller) · 7.1 mi
Keller, TX placed on the Texas high school baseball PLAYOFF HITS leaderboard for the 2026 postseason: Cole Koeninger (16 hits, #15 in TX).
Fort Worth-Dallas Interurban · 7.2 mi · Historical Marker
You're cruising between Fort Worth and Dallas right now, and you're passing the former route of the Fort Worth-Dallas Interurban! In 1901, the state gave the green light for this electric railway. Just a year later,…
Handley Power Plant & Lake Erie · 7.2 mi · Historical Marker
You're driving past the site of the Handley Power Plant and Lake Erie, a spot that powered the Fort Worth-Dallas Interurban line. Built by the Northern Texas Traction Company, this plant used Lake Erie right here for…
Handley Cemetery · 7.2 mi · Historical Marker
You're driving past the Handley Cemetery, originally serving the pioneer settlers of the Handley Community. This area developed after the Texas and Pacific Railroad arrived in 1876. The earliest marked grave is Jane E.…
First Baptist Church of Keller · 7.2 mi · Historical Marker
You're driving past the site of the First Baptist Church of Keller. It all started back in 1882, when twenty members from Mt. Gilead Baptist Church decided to form their own congregation. They met first in a…

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Judge Benjamin Franklin Barkley

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