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Southlake, Texas

Everything Southlake is known for

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Music in Southlake

Songs About Southlake

I’ve Been Everywhere...In Texas
Brian Burns
7%
"Southlake"

Artists From Southlake

Rivers & Roads in Song near Southlake

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

History of Southlake

The Town That Named Itself After a Lake It Couldn't Touch RoadyGoat

For more than a century, the rolling country west of Grapevine wasn't one town at all but a scatter of farming communities, each clustered around its own one-room school: Dove, White's Chapel, and Old Union. People here didn't say they were from anywhere in particular, just from whichever community sat closest to their land. That changed in 1952, when the Army Corps of Engineers finished damming Denton Creek and filled Grapevine Lake along the area's northern edge. The water brought recreation, newcomers, and the eye of fast-growing neighbors. When the city of Hurst started annexing land right up the road, the farm families decided they'd rather govern themselves than be swallowed. On a close vote of 30 to 24 in 1956, they incorporated. They needed a name, and mayor A. Gail Eubanks's daughter Suzanne offered the obvious one: the town sat just south of the new lake. So they became Southlake, christened for a body of water that formed the boundary they were trying to protect. (Source: Southlake Historical Society; Handbook of Texas.)

Southlake, TX RoadyGoat

The name Southlake has a charming origin story. When the town was incorporated in 1956, the residents, who had voted against annexation by Hurst, needed a name for their new town. The first mayor, Anthony Gail Eubanks, had a daughter who chose the name Southlake due to its proximity to the newly completed Grapevine Lake. Thus, the name Southlake was born, reflecting the town's geographical feature and its residents' desire for a distinct identity.

The Cast Iron Forest at the Edge of Town RoadyGoat

On the wooded land along Grapevine Lake's southern shore, the Bob Jones Nature Center preserves a patch of one of the strangest ecosystems in Texas: the Cross Timbers. This is a long band of gnarled woodland that runs from Kansas down through North Texas, marking the natural border where the eastern forests give way to the open Great Plains. Early settlers and explorers nicknamed it the Cast Iron Forest, because its tangle of thorny vines, brush, and stunted oaks was so dense that wagons could barely push through it. The preserve protects roughly 758 acres of this rare Eastern Cross Timbers habitat, much of it kept as post oak savannah, scattered copses of post oak, blackjack oak, and black hickory standing in a sea of native grass. Because the timbers sit along the Central Flyway, the land draws migrating birds, alongside resident bobcats, coyotes, foxes, and white-tailed deer. In a city famous for manicured wealth, this is a deliberately wild remnant, a living museum of the iron-hard frontier woodland the first families had to hack their way through.

Quinn Ewers at Southlake Carroll

Quinn Ewers, Southlake Carroll (Carroll Senior HS, grades 11-12). Sophomore 2019: ~4,000 pass yds, 45 TD, 3 INT, team 13-1, District 5-6A unanimous MVP. Junior 2020: 2,442 yds, 28 TD, missed ~6 games (core-muscle injury), reached 6A Div I state title game (lost to Westlake). Career (22 games): 6,445 pass yds, 73 TD. No. 1 overall recruit, class of 2022. Reclassified Aug 2021, skipped senior season, enrolled early at Ohio State for NIL (deal reported ~$1.4M). Sources: Wikipedia, MaxPreps, WFAA, 247Sports, CBS Sports, ESPN, USA Today HSS.

Dove Community

1843

The 1843 Bird's Fort Treaty between the Republic of Texas and several Native American tribes opened this area for new immigrants. In the ensuing years, a number of families from Platt County, Missouri and other parts of the United States migrated to this area and established the Cross Timbers community (now Grapevine). In February 1846, residents living on the northern edge of the community organized the Lonesome Dove Baptist Church in the fall of that year. In 1847, members built a long log structure approximately four miles northwest of Grapevine in the Eastern Cross Timbers. The Lonesome Dove School also began in 1846, and the Rev. John Allen Freeman served as schoolteacher as well as church pastor for ten years. In 1849, the state legislature created Tarrant County, with Birdville as county seat, and the U.S. Army established Fort Worth as a frontier fort. The small village of Dove developed by the 1870s. A general store and post office operated at the intersection of Dove and Lonesome Dove roads, and the community became a prosperous farming center for cotton, melon and dairy production. Included as part of the community were Lonesome Dove Cemetery just north of the church site, the Dove Branch swimming hole, used for recreation as well as baptisms, and Dove School, which consolidated with other area schools to form the Carroll Common School District in 1919. The federal government completed Lake Grapevine in 1952, requiring a number of families to relocate from the northern portion of the Dove Community. In 1979, the City of Southlake annexed Dove, but evidence of the early area community remains. (2006)

Nash Farm

1859

NASH FARM ESTABLISHED IN 1859, THE NASH FARM CONSTITUTES ONE OF THE LAST REMAINING AGRARIAN SITES FROM THE 19TH CENTURY IN NORTH TEXAS IN THE REGION WHERE THERE WAS ONCE A PERVASIVE LANDSCAPE OF FARMSTEADS. THOMAS JEFFERSON NASH, ELIZABETH MOUSER NASH AND THEIR FIRST THREE CHILDREN MIGRATED FROM KENTUCKY TO TEXAS IN 1854, FIRST SETTLING IN DALLAS AND THEN MOVING WITHIN A FEW MONTHS TO THE GRAPEVINE VICINITY. THEY WERE JOINED BY THOMAS’ BROTHER, WILLIAM P. NASH. BY 1859, THEY SETTLED PERMANENTLY ON THIS SITE. THE ORIGINAL FARM PROPERTY CONSISTED OF 450 ACRES WITH A VARIETY OF CROPS AND ANIMALS. DURING THE CIVIL WAR, THOMAS AND WILLIAM LEFT TO SERVE WITH CONFEDERATE TROOPS. THEY LEFT THE FARM IN THE CARE OF ELIZABETH AND THE CHILDREN; BOTH SURVIVED THE WAR AND RETURNED HOME TO ENLARGE THEIR FARM HOLDINGS. THE NASH FARMHOUSE, CONSTRUCTED IN 1869, IS A TWO-STORY I-HOUSE WITH A ONE-STORY ATTACHED PARTIAL WIDTH FRONT PORCH. THE PROPERTY ALSO BOASTS A 1907 SECONDARY GABLE-ROOFED WOOD FRAME TRANSVERSE BARN, OR CRIB BARN, A CEMETERY DATING TO 1878 AND A BRICK CISTERN DRESSED WITH A BRICK RIM AND DECORATIVE METAL CISTERN DRAW. IN 1888, THOMAS AND ELIZABETH GAVE LAND FOR THE RIGHT OF WAY TO THE COTTON BELT RAILROAD, WHICH CONTRIBUTED TO THE ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT OF THE GRAPEVINE AREA. THE FARM REMAINED IN THE NASH FAMILY UNTIL THE 1920s. REHABILITATION OF THE PROPERTY IN 2008 RESTORED THE FARM AND ITS HISTORIC STRUCTURES, PRESERVING THEM FOR FUTURE GENERATIONS. IN 2010, THE PROPERTY WAS LISTED IN THE NATIONAL REGISTER OF HISTORIC PLACES. RECORDED TEXAS HISTORIC LANDMARK – 2014

Gano, Richard Montgomery

1862

Richard Montgomery Gano, doctor, soldier, and minister, son of John Allen and Mary Catherine (Conn) Gano, was born in Bourbon County, Kentucky, on June 17, 1830. The elder Gano was a minister of the Disciples of Christ and was associated with Alexander Campbell and Barton W. Stone in the restoration movement. Richard was baptized into that church at the age of ten. At twelve he went to Bacon College in Harrodsburg, Kentucky. At about seventeen he completed his collegiate course at Bethany College in Virginia and around 1850 graduated from Louisville Medical University in Kentucky. He practiced medicine for about eight years in Kentucky and Baton Rouge, Louisiana. In 1853 he married Martha (Mattie) J. Welch of Crab Orchard, Kentucky. The couple eventually had twelve children, nine of whom lived to maturity. The family had moved to Texas by 1859 and settled at Grapevine Prairie, where Gano began farming, raising stock, and practicing medicine. He helped organize a company and went in pursuit of a Comanche raiding party when it swept through Parker and Wise counties in 1858. He was awarded a sword by the citizens of Tarrant County for his efforts. In 1860 he was elected to represent the county in the Texas legislature, where he was responsible for a bill on frontier protection and was active in floor discussions relating to livestock interests. He resigned his seat to enter the Confederate Army and began active duty as a cavalry captain in January 1862. Early in the war he organized two companies of Texas cavalry at the request of his friend Gen. Albert Sidney Johnston and joined forces with John Hunt Morgan; he served in Kentucky in 1862. He was promoted to colonel of the Seventh Kentucky Cavalry and served in the Tullahoma campaign of June 1863. He left active service for a short time because of ill health and then was transferred to the Trans-Mississippi Department in late 1863. There he was assigned by Gen. E. Kirby Smith to the command of a brigade of cavalry and of artillery operating in Arkansas, Indian Territory, and Missouri. On September 19, 1864, at the battle of Cabin Creek in Indian Territory, Gano was wounded as his forces captured an enemy supply train valued at $2 million. He was officially promoted to brigadier general on March 17, 1865, and was recommended for promotion to major general, but the war ended before the commission was issued. After the war Gano returned to Kentucky and entered the ministry of the Disciples of Christ. By 1870 he was in Dallas County, Texas, where he was a minister and stock farmer. His ministry spanned forty-five years, and he established many churches. He also made a speaking tour during the prohibition campaign of 1887 to promote a Texas prohibition amendment. Gano was responsible for importing much fine blooded livestock into Texas, including cattle, horses, sheep, and hogs. He formed a real estate company with two of his sons and was vice president of the Estado Land and Cattle Company. He also served as director of the Bankers and Merchants National Bank. He was active in the United Confederate Veterans. Gano died on March 27, 1913, in Dallas, Texas, and is buried there in Oakland Cemetery. Gano's log house has been moved from Grapevine to Old City Park in Dallas.

Tsha Handbook → · 3.4 mi away

Grapevine, TX (Tarrant County)

1844

Grapevine, Texas, is located along State Highways 114 and 121 in the northeastern corner of Tarrant County. Some small sections of the city extend into Dallas and Denton counties. Grapevine is north of the West Fork of the Trinity River and lies on the edge of the Grapevine Prairie and the Eastern Cross Timbers. Grapevine Lake extends from northern Grapevine into neighboring Denton County to the north. The first permanent Anglo settlement in the Grapevine area was known as the "Missouri Colony." In 1844 a group of "related families from Platte County, Missouri," settled along Denton Creek in the vicinity of present-day Grapevine on land that was then part of the Peters Colony . By July 1846 children were receiving their education from John Allen Freeman in a log schoolhouse. The first church in the area was the Lonesome Dove Baptist Church, founded in 1846 and located about five miles northwest of Grapevine. Grapevine First Baptist Church was established in the early 1850s. Around 1854 Judge James Tracy Morehead, Archibald Franklin Leonard , and Henry L. Suggs, among others, met for the purpose of laying out a town and establishing a post office. Morehead proposed the name "Grape Vine," due to the settlement's location on the Grapevine Prairie. Leonard, who operated the first store in town, was appointed the first postmaster. Grape Vine (as two words) was incorporated on February 12, 1907. The United States Post Office condensed the name to just one word, Grapevine, in 1914. The first houses built in Grapevine were simple log cabins occupied by settlers. Later the "typical 19th-century Grapevine house was a one-story wood-frame dwelling...topped with a gable or hipped roof." Prior to the Civil War , cattle raising was the primary source of economic activity in the region. Grapevine Masonic Lodge No. 288 was chartered in 1866. In 1869 the Grapevine Independent School District was established; its first school was the Grapevine Masonic Institute, built by the Grapevine Masonic Lodge. In the late 1860s and 1870s, improvements to the plow allowed Grapevine farmers to cut through the black soils of the prairie and cultivate a variety of crops. By the mid-1880s Grapevine had a population of approximately 550. The town had, according to the Texas State Gazetteer and Business Directory of 1884-85, three gristmills and cotton gins, a public school, four physicians, Methodist and Baptist churches, and a number of businesses, including grocers, drugstores, blacksmiths, a hotel, and an art gallery. Daily stages traveled, at a rate of five cents per mile, to Dallas and Fort Worth. In 1888 the St. Louis, Arkansas, and Texas Railway arrived and provided a way for farmers to get their products to broader markets. The railroad transformed Grapevine into an agricultural trade center and facilitated the development of cotton as a cash crop in the region. The town's commercial district, consisting of single-story and two-story brick buildings, developed throughout the 1880s and 1890s. Grapevine's first local newspaper was the Grapevine Globe , established sometime before its sale in 1882. The Grapevine Sun, established by future Grapevine mayor Benjamin Richard Wall in 1895, was in publication until 1977. The town showed growth into the early twentieth century, with population figures of 681 in 1910 and 821 in 1920. In 1921 the Grapevine Fire Department was chartered, but, as in preceding decades, the community was dependent on volunteer firefighters. (Grapevine's first paid fire chief was hired in 1973.) The first public library opened on March 3, 1923, as part of the Tarrant County Free Library. In 1948 the United States Army Corps of Engineers began construction on the Grapevine Dam for the purpose of "flood control, recreation, and a water supply." The reservoir project, which created Grapevine Lake, was completed in 1952. The town's population grew from 1,043 in 1940 to 2,821 by 1960. In 1965 the cities of Dallas and Fort Worth joined togeth

Tsha Handbook → · 3.4 mi away

Quayle, William

1863

William Quayle, Civil War officer, was born in Kirk Michael Parish, Isle of Man, on October 18, 1825. His parents came to America when he was a child and settled in Ontario County, New York. He attended Canadagua Academy. He went to sea for nearly ten years and eventually became a captain. He later traveled in Europe and Asia and was broken in health upon his return to America. He moved to Texas in the 1850s and settled near Grapevine, where he served as a district clerk, district judge, and chief justice of Tarrant County. He was opposed to secession ; nonetheless he organized Company A, Ninth Texas Cavalry, the first company to leave Tarrant County for Confederate service. As lieutenant colonel he commanded the regiment at the battles of Pea Ridge and Corinth but soon returned to Tarrant County in poor health. Shortly after Quayle's return he won election to the state Senate and took his seat in February 1863. He served as cochairman on the Joint Committee on Frontier Protection and worked to push through the bill to transfer the Frontier Regiment to the Confederate Army and to form the state-supported Frontier Organization . In January 1864 Governor Pendleton Murrah appointed Quayle major in command of the First Frontier District, the nineteen organized counties on the state's northwestern frontier. From headquarters at Decatur, Quayle struggled throughout the spring and summer to maintain order in this, the most complex and difficult district to manage in the entire frontier organization. As well as patrolling against Indian raids, his men were kept busy searching for deserters, draft dodgers, and renegades. By summer's end, with his health failing, Quayle requested to be relieved. His replacement, James Webb Throckmorton , took command of the district on December 13, 1864. Quayle served briefly as Throckmorton's second-in-command until March 1865, when poor health required him to take a furlough. At the end of the war Quayle joined other Confederate officers and moved to Mexico for several years. He returned to Texas briefly, then moved to Missouri, where he lived the remainder of his life. He first married Sarah Henderson of Mississippi, then Elizabeth Terrill of Missouri. Quayle died at his home in Moberly, Missouri, on August 8, 1901.

Tsha Handbook → · 3.4 mi away

Things to Do in Southlake

historical 22.0 mi away
The Sixth Floor Museum

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

historical 22.0 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…

quirky 24.3 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 16.2 mi away
Fort Worth Stockyards

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

historical 16.2 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 16.7 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 24.1 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 24.2 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 Southlake

🏆 STATE CHAMPIONS Class 6A · Baseball · 2018–2022

Carroll Southlake — UIL 6A Baseball State Champions — 3 titles

Most recent: 2022 6A

The baseball program at Carroll Southlake High School stands as a point of pride in Southlake, Texas. Competing in Class 6A, the Dragons have established a strong record, securing multiple state championships in recent years. Their consistent performance reflects a dedicated athletic culture within the community.

Carroll Southlake claimed the 6A state title in 2022, adding to their previous victories in 2019 and 2018. These accomplishments highlight a significant period of success for the baseball team, bringing state-level recognition to the Southlake athletic scene.

State titles
3 (2018–2022)
Most recent
2022
Class
6A
The moment

In 2022, Carroll Southlake High School captured the Class 6A state baseball championship.

🏆 STATE CHAMPIONS Class 6A · Volleyball · 2025

Carroll Southlake — 2025 UIL 6A Division 2 Volleyball State Champions

Most recent: 2025 6A Division 2

The Carroll Southlake High School volleyball program, competing in Class 6A, holds a significant place in the community. The Dragons have achieved a UIL 6A Division 2 State Championship in 2025, a testament to their consistent effort and skill on the court.

This accomplishment reflects the dedication within the Southlake program. The team's performance brings a notable point of pride for Carroll Southlake High School, showcasing the competitive spirit of Texas high school athletics.

State titles
2025
Most recent
2025
Class
6A
The moment

The 2025 6A Division 2 State Championship represents a high point for Carroll Southlake High School volleyball.

Everything Near Southlake

1531 stories, landmarks & places within ~20 miles — the nearest 200 are listed here — the same local lore RoadyGoat plays as you drive through.

  • The Town That Named Itself After a Lake It Couldn't Touch

    For more than a century, the rolling country west of Grapevine wasn't one town at all but a scatter of farming communities, each clustered around its own one-room school: Dove, White's Chapel, and Old Union. People here…

  • Southlake, TX

    The name Southlake has a charming origin story. When the town was incorporated in 1956, the residents, who had voted against annexation by Hurst, needed a name for their new town. The first mayor, Anthony Gail Eubanks,…

  • The Cast Iron Forest at the Edge of Town

    On the wooded land along Grapevine Lake's southern shore, the Bob Jones Nature Center preserves a patch of one of the strangest ecosystems in Texas: the Cross Timbers. This is a long band of gnarled woodland that runs…

  • The Quarterback Who Reclassified to Cash In

    Some of the most-watched high school football in the country has been played on Southlake Carroll's field, and few players drew more eyes than quarterback Quinn Ewers. As a Dragons sophomore in 2019, Ewers threw for…

  • From Farm Communities to the Richest Address in America

    It's hard to overstate how fast Southlake transformed. As late as 1980 it was a quiet town of fewer than 3,000 people, the descendants of those Dove and White's Chapel farm families. Then North Texas exploded around the…

  • Before the City, the Schools Were the Towns

    Stand anywhere in modern Southlake and it's easy to forget that not so long ago there was no town here at all, only a handful of tiny farm communities that each revolved around a single building: the schoolhouse. West…

  • They Built a Downtown Where There Had Never Been One · 0.2 mi

    Most American suburbs grow outward from an old main street. Southlake never had one, so in the 1990s it built a downtown from scratch on open farmland. The developers Cooper & Stebbins, led by Brian Stebbins, hired…

  • Carroll School · 0.9 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving through Southlake, and this marker tells the story of Carroll School. It began way back in 1847 as one of Tarrant County's earliest schools, initially called Dove School. Fast forward to 1919: residents…

  • White's Chapel United Methodist Church · 0.9 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving past the site of White's Chapel United Methodist Church, founded by settlers who arrived by wagon train all the way from Georgia in 1871. They first met in the home of S. B. Austin, who then donated land…

  • Forty Wagons From Georgia, and a Chapel That Named a Road · 1.0 mi

    In the spring of 1871, twelve families and a handful of single travelers loaded everything they owned into roughly forty wagons and rolled out of Rising Fawn, in Dade County, Georgia, bound for Texas. When they settled…

  • White's Chapel Cemetery · 1.0 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving past White's Chapel Cemetery, a quiet resting place that began with a tragedy on the Texas frontier. Local legend says it started around 1851, when a child traveling in a wagon train died and was buried…

  • Absalom H. Chivers Cemetery · 1.2 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving past the Absalom H. Chivers Cemetery, established for a prosperous farmer who arrived from Mississippi around 1852. Chivers, with the help of his five slaves, farmed this land along Dove Creek until his…

Show all 200 nearby places
  • Inventing a Downtown: Southlake Town Square · 1.3 mi

    Most downtowns grow over a century. Southlake built its own in about a decade. If you’re near Southlake Town Square, you’re standing in the heart of a bold urban planning experiment. In the mid-1990s, city leaders and…

  • The Lake That Made a City · 1.3 mi

    The very existence of Southlake is owed to a massive feat of civil engineering and hydrology: the creation of Grapevine Lake. As you near the water, imagine this landscape as it was before 1950—a valley carved by Denton…

  • Southlake, TX · 1.3 mi

    Southlake is well known for its Southlake Town Square project, a shopping center located on State Highway 114 and Southlake Boulevard. A plan was approved in March 2005 to double the Town Square's area, with the new…

  • From Farming Hamlets to a Single City · 1.3 mi

    The city of Southlake was born in a hurry, and out of a threat. Before 1956 this was a scatter of small farming communities — Whites Chapel, Dove, Union Church, Jellico — that were really just a church, a school and a…

  • A 19-Million-Dollar Cathedral to High School Football · 1.4 mi

    When a Texas suburb spends like a small college on a high school football field, you get Dragon Stadium. Carroll ISD opened it in 2001 at a cost reported between 15 and 19 million dollars, an enormous sum for a high…

  • Thomas Easter Cemetery · 1.6 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving through Southlake, passing the site of the Thomas Easter Cemetery. Thomas Easter, a Virginia native, settled here by 1848, patenting over 600 acres. After his death in 1862, a portion of his land became…

  • Quinn Ewers at Southlake Carroll · 1.7 mi · Sports Alumni

    Quinn Ewers, Southlake Carroll (Carroll Senior HS, grades 11-12). Sophomore 2019: ~4,000 pass yds, 45 TD, 3 INT, team 13-1, District 5-6A unanimous MVP. Junior 2020: 2,442 yds, 28 TD, missed ~6 games (core-muscle…

  • The Peters Colony in Tarrant County · 1.8 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving through Tarrant County, a place that was once part of the massive Peters Colony. Back in 1841, W.S. Peters and his partners struck a deal with the Republic of Texas to bring settlers to this very region.…

  • Post Malone Grew Up Here Before the World Knew the Name · 2.0 mi

    Long before he was a face-tattooed superstar, Post Malone was Austin Richard Post, a kid from Grapevine. Born in Syracuse, New York, in 1995, he moved here with his family around age nine after his father took a job…

  • The Easter Sunday Ambush of Bonnie and Clyde · 2.3 mi

    On Easter Sunday, April 1, 1934, this area became a bloody footnote in the story of Bonnie and Clyde. Two young state highway patrolmen, E.B. Wheeler and H.D. Murphy, stopped to check on what they thought was a stranded…

  • The Airport That Changed Everything · 2.3 mi

    Look to the sky. Chances are, you’ll see a plane. The story of modern Grapevine is inseparable from the giant next door: Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport. Before 1974, this area was mostly farmland and prairie.…

  • Grapevine, TX · 2.3 mi

    On Easter Sunday, April 1, 1934, a notorious event occurred near Grapevine when Henry Methvin, an associate of Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow, killed two police officers, E.B. Wheeler and H.D. Murphy. This incident is…

  • The Railroad That Rebuilt Itself · 2.3 mi

    As you pass the tracks running through Grapevine, you're looking at the town's 19th-century lifeline and its 21st-century showpiece. The railroad first arrived in 1888, connecting Grapevine's farms to the rest of the…

  • Engineering a Lake to Tame a Creek · 2.3 mi

    If you see the vast expanse of Grapevine Lake, you might think it’s a natural feature. But it’s actually a massive feat of civil engineering, designed to solve a serious problem. The creeks in this area, especially…

  • When Grapevine was the Cantaloupe Capital · 2.3 mi

    It's hard to imagine now, but for forty years the fields around Grapevine were famous for one thing: cantaloupes. Cotton had carried the town until the market fell out from under it, and Texas A&M told these farmers to…

  • Dove Community · 2.3 mi · Historical Marker

    The 1843 Bird's Fort Treaty between the Republic of Texas and several Native American tribes opened this area for new immigrants. In the ensuing years, a number of families from Platt County, Missouri and other parts of…

  • Hood Cemetery · 2.3 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving past the Hood Cemetery, established on the farm of Peters colonist Thomas M. Hood. He arrived in Texas around 1845. The earliest marked grave here belongs to Urias Martin, who died in 1855. While unmarked…

  • The Dragons: Eight Titles and a 72-Game Win Streak · 2.4 mi

    Few high school football programs in America have a record like the one built here. The Southlake Carroll Dragons have won eight Texas state championships across four decades. The foundation was laid under coach Bob…

  • The Creek That Named, Watered, and Washed the Town · 2.7 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…

  • The Night a Tornado Came in a Winter Storm · 2.7 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…

  • The Oldest Working Farm in Tarrant County · 2.9 mi

    At 626 Ball Street, a few blocks off Main, sits a working slice of the Grapevine Prairie as it looked before the railroad and the airport. Thomas Jefferson Nash bought 110 acres of farmland here in 1859, moving in with…

  • Nash Farm · 2.9 mi · Historical Marker

    NASH FARM ESTABLISHED IN 1859, THE NASH FARM CONSTITUTES ONE OF THE LAST REMAINING AGRARIAN SITES FROM THE 19TH CENTURY IN NORTH TEXAS IN THE REGION WHERE THERE WAS ONCE A PERVASIVE LANDSCAPE OF FARMSTEADS. THOMAS…

  • Jellico · 3.1 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving through Southlake, and just ahead is the site of Jellico, a town that boomed and busted. Robert Emmett Wilson and his family settled here in the 1880s, opening a general store. By 1898, they had a post…

  • First United Methodist Church, Grapevine · 3.1 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving past the site of Grapevine's first Methodist church. Lay preacher Nathan Hudgins began services in his home around 1854, and the Grapevine Methodist Episcopal Church, South, was officially organized in…

  • The Little Church That Named a Pulitzer Novel · 3.2 mi

    When the Missouri families reached the Cross Timbers, they didn't just build farms, they built a faith community, and on February 21, 1846, Joshua Hodges organized Lonesome Dove Baptist Church, the oldest Baptist…

  • The Springs Where Texas Came to Make Peace · 3.2 mi

    You're standing on what the earliest maps called Grape Vine Prairie, named for the wild mustang grapes that tangled across this part of the Cross Timbers long before any town existed. In October 1843, Republic of Texas…

  • Eleven Bronze Figures Standing in for a Lost Council · 3.2 mi

    Near Grapevine Main Station, eleven bronze figures stand together in a ring, and they are not generic frontier statuary. They are an attempt to recreate the 1843 meeting between Sam Houston and the leaders of ten Native…

  • The Day the Cotton Belt Put Grapevine on the Map · 3.2 mi

    For four decades Grapevine was a hard-to-reach farm settlement on the prairie, until 1888, when the St. Louis Southwestern Railway, better known as the Cotton Belt Route, finally laid track through town. The railroad…

  • The Town That Annexed an Airport · 3.2 mi

    In 1965 Dallas and Fort Worth, two rival cities that had spent decades fighting over which would host the region's airport, finally agreed to build one giant facility together, immediately southeast of Grapevine. A…

  • Dinner Inside Grapevine's First Gas Station · 3.2 mi

    Willhoite's at 432 South Main looks like a restaurant, but the building has a far greasier past. Put up in 1913 as a department store and silent-movie house, it was converted in 1919 into the Willhoite Garage,…

  • Puffy, the 1896 Ten-Wheeler That Still Runs the Cotton Belt · 3.2 mi

    Riding the rails out of Grapevine's Cotton Belt depot is a genuine piece of 19th-century engineering nicknamed Puffy. Officially locomotive No. 2248, she's a 4-6-0 steam engine, a wheel arrangement called a Ten-Wheeler,…

  • How a Creek Became a Lake to Save Dallas From Floods · 3.2 mi

    The big reservoir on Grapevine's northern edge didn't exist before the 1950s. Grapevine Lake is entirely artificial, built by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers by damming Denton Creek, a tributary that feeds the Elm Fork…

  • The Grapevine Sun · 3.2 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving past the site of the Grapevine Sun, a newspaper that served this town for nearly a century! It all started in 1895 with Benjamin Wall, who was just nineteen when he launched the weekly paper. It changed…

  • Tarrant County State Bank Building · 3.2 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving past the old Tarrant County State Bank building in Grapevine. Originally built in 1897 as retail space, it got a new life in 1921 when the Tarrant County State Bank moved in. Imagine the deals made and…

  • Choosing a Vineyard · 3.3 mi

    You're in Grapevine, Texas, so here's the grapevine tangent behind the name: vineyards balance climate, season length, freeze and hail risk, rainfall, drainage, soil depth, slope, disease pressure, labor, and market.…

  • The Prairie That Named the Town · 3.3 mi

    You're in Grapevine, Texas, so here's the grapevine tangent behind the name: town founders proposed Grape Vine because the settlement stood on Grapevine Prairie. Native mustang grapes grow across Texas, producing small…

  • How Wine Ferments · 3.3 mi

    You're in Grapevine, Texas, so here's the grapevine tangent behind the name: yeast converts grape sugars primarily into ethanol and carbon dioxide, while temperature, oxygen exposure, grape microbes, nutrients, skins,…

  • Fresh Grape, Raisin, or Seedless Grape · 3.3 mi

    You're in Grapevine, Texas, so here's the grapevine tangent behind the name: a raisin is a grape with most water removed, concentrating sugar, acid, flavor, and calories by weight. Seedless grapes are not truly seedless…

  • Through the Grapevine · 3.3 mi

    You're in Grapevine, Texas, so here's the grapevine tangent behind the name: heard it through the grapevine means information traveling informally from person to person. The phrase likely drew on the tangled, branching…

  • Grapevine, TX · 3.3 mi

    In October 1843, a pivotal moment in Grapevine's history occurred when General Sam Houston and Republic of Texas commissioners met with leaders of 10 Indian nations at Grape Vine Springs. This meeting resulted in a…

  • A Town Named for Grapes Finally Made the Wine · 3.3 mi

    For most of its life Grapevine grew cotton and grain, not wine, despite the wild mustang grapes that gave the prairie its name. That irony finally resolved in 1986, when the town launched GrapeFest on Historic Main…

  • Torian Log Cabin · 3.3 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving past the Torian Log Cabin, a survivor from the earliest days of settlement in Tarrant County. Built by hand from rough-hewn logs, this cabin stood on the edge of the Cross Timbers, near the pioneer…

  • Grapevine · 3.3 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving through Grapevine, a town named for the wild mustang grapes that once grew here in abundance. Ambrose and Susannah Foster were among the first settlers back in 1845, arriving from Missouri. Their land…

  • J.E. Foust & Son Funeral Directors · 3.3 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving past the site of a business that's been serving Grapevine for over a century. Back in 1880, John E. Foust arrived and opened a general store that happened to stock coffins. Over time, the coffin business…

  • Pleasant Run Baptist Church · 3.3 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…

  • Dorris-Brock House · 3.3 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving past the site of the Dorris-Brock House, a testament to Grapevine's early settlement and growth. <break time="400ms"/> Dr. William E. Dorris, a Civil War veteran whose first wife died during the conflict,…

  • Gano, Richard Montgomery · 3.4 mi · Tsha Handbook

    Richard Montgomery Gano, doctor, soldier, and minister, son of John Allen and Mary Catherine (Conn) Gano, was born in Bourbon County, Kentucky, on June 17, 1830. The elder Gano was a minister of the Disciples of Christ…

  • Grapevine, TX (Tarrant County) · 3.4 mi · Tsha Handbook

    Grapevine, Texas, is located along State Highways 114 and 121 in the northeastern corner of Tarrant County. Some small sections of the city extend into Dallas and Denton counties. Grapevine is north of the West Fork of…

  • Quayle, William · 3.4 mi · Tsha Handbook

    William Quayle, Civil War officer, was born in Kirk Michael Parish, Isle of Man, on October 18, 1825. His parents came to America when he was a child and settled in Ontario County, New York. He attended Canadagua…

  • The Railroad Town That Colleyville Erased · 3.4 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…

  • WFAA · 3.4 mi · Tsha Handbook

    You're driving through North Texas, and right here near Grapevine, you might have passed a tower that was once the tallest man-made structure in the Southwest. This was the shared transmitter for two rival radio…

  • Leonard, Archibald Franklin · 3.4 mi · Tsha Handbook

    You're driving through Tarrant County, near Grapevine, where Archibald Franklin Leonard settled in 1845. He wasn't just a farmer; he helped lay out this very town and served as postmaster and justice of the peace. When…

  • Walker, Charles Edwin · 3.4 mi · Tsha Handbook

    You're driving through Grapevine, Texas, a town that owes much of its early 20th-century character to Dr. Charles Edwin Walker. After graduating medical school in 1898, he returned here, setting up a unique "horse and…

  • First Baptist Church of Grapevine · 3.4 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving through Grapevine, and right here, you're passing the site of the First Baptist Church. Baptists were meeting in homes as early as 1846, long before this town was officially on the map. Worship services…

  • Grapevine Lake · 3.4 mi · Tsha Handbook

    You're driving near Grapevine Lake, a massive reservoir created by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. Construction on the dam, located on Denton Creek, began back in January of <say-as interpret-as="date"…

  • Bransford · 3.5 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…

  • Grapevine Cemetery · 3.6 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving past Grapevine Cemetery, a resting place for many of this area's pioneers. Brothers Samuel and Allen Coble settled here in the 1850s. Then, in 1878, they donated land for this public cemetery. The oldest…

  • James Tracy Morehead · 3.6 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving through Grapevine, a town with a name that might surprise you. Back in 1854, this place was known as Dunnville. That's when James Tracy Morehead, who’d arrived in Texas just two years prior, became the…

  • Colleyville, TX · 3.6 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…

  • Pleasant Run School · 3.7 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,…

  • Colleyville, TX · 3.8 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 · 3.8 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 · 3.8 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 · 3.8 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 · 3.8 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…

  • Parker Memorial Cemetery · 3.8 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving past Parker Memorial Cemetery, a resting place with roots stretching back to the mid-19th century. The first burial here is believed to be Christina Driskill, who died in 1862. Her son-in-law, Isaac Green…

  • The Doctor Who Named the Town After Himself · 4.1 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,…

  • The Shortstop Who Went Second in the Draft · 4.1 mi

    If you're near Colleyville Heritage High School, you're at the launch pad for one of baseball's brightest young stars. Bobby Witt Jr. starred as a shortstop here before the Kansas City Royals took him with the second…

  • From Lightly Recruited Panther to NFL Sack Machine · 4.1 mi

    Colleyville Heritage High School turned out a second pro standout to go with its baseball star. Maxx Crosby, born in Lapeer, Michigan, moved to Colleyville as a teenager and played defensive end and tight end for the…

  • Dr. Lilburn Howard Colley · 4.1 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…

  • A Farmhouse Cast From Concrete, Block by Block · 4.2 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 · 4.2 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 Bidault House · 4.2 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.…

  • When This Was the Dairy Center of Tarrant County · 4.3 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 · 4.3 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.…

  • The Fire Hall a House Fire Built · 4.3 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…

  • Barbecue in Colleyville's Oldest Storefront · 4.3 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…

  • Pleasant Glade Baptist Church · 4.3 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving through Colleyville, and right here is the site of the Pleasant Glade Baptist Church, organized way back on September 19, 1923. Fourteen members, all from the older Pleasant Run Baptist Church, started…

  • Witten Cemetery · 4.4 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…

  • The Hogan Feud and the Empty Trophy Room · 4.9 mi

    The Trophy Club Country Club is the heart of this town, and the town's very name came out of a deal that fell apart. When Fort Worth attorney John McMackin planned this community in the early 1970s, he convinced the…

  • The Billionaire's Ranch · 4.9 mi

    Much of the pristine, rolling landscape you see around you was once a single property: the Circle T Ranch, laid out in 1956 and bought in the mid-1970s by eccentric oil billionaire Nelson Bunker Hunt. Hunt was then one…

  • The Dam That Made a Town Possible · 4.9 mi

    The reason a town like Trophy Club can exist here has everything to do with a massive engineering project completed two decades before its founding. Just to the east lies Grapevine Lake. Before 1952, this was just the…

  • The Town with Its Own School · 4.9 mi

    As Westlake was being reborn as a high-end community, its leaders faced a problem. The town was split between three different, large Independent School Districts. This meant children on one street might go to a…

  • Engineering a 21st Century Town · 4.9 mi

    Imagine an empty cattle ranch turning into an address for tens of thousands of finance employees. That's modern Westlake, and it took about seventy years. Dallas attorney J. Glenn Turner established the Circle T Ranch…

  • Westlake, TX · 4.9 mi

    Westlake's history began in 1847 when Charles and Matilda Medlin, along with about 20 other families, settled the area. In the mid-20th century, the region was known as Circle T Ranch, a 2,000-acre ranch founded by…

  • Trophy Club, TX · 4.9 mi

    Several notable individuals have connections to this community.

  • The Town That Almost Vanished · 4.9 mi

    You are driving through a town that came very close to disappearing. Westlake was incorporated in 1956, the same year Dallas attorney Glen Turner founded the Circle T Ranch here, on a quiet stretch of ranching country…

  • From MUD to Town: Taking Control · 4.9 mi

    For the first twelve years of its existence, Trophy Club wasn't really a town. It was a MUD—a Municipal Utility District. This is a special kind of political entity in Texas, created by developers to finance and build…

  • Morgan Hood Survey Pioneer Cemetery · 4.9 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving through Grapevine, near the old Morgan Hood Survey. Look for a small cemetery, abandoned for over a century. Its single visible grave is marked with stones, a common pioneer method from the 1850s to…

  • Mount Gilead Baptist Church · 5.1 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving through Keller, and right here is the site of Mount Gilead Baptist Church. This congregation officially formed in 1850, making it the very first church established after Tarrant County itself was created…

  • Medlin Cemetery · 5.1 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving past Medlin Cemetery, a resting place with roots stretching back to the earliest days of Denton County. In 1847, Charles Medlin and his wife Matilda led a wagon train from Missouri, seeking land grants on…

  • Westlake, TX · 5.1 mi · Tsha Handbook

    You're driving near Westlake, a town with a history as dramatic as any Hollywood script. It all started in 1956 when Dallas attorney Glen Turner founded the Circle T Ranch. Later that year, ranchers and homeowners…

  • Mount Gilead Cemetery · 5.1 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving past Mount Gilead Cemetery, a final resting place for some of the earliest settlers in this part of Tarrant County. These families arrived all the way from Missouri in 1847, part of the Peters Colony.…

  • Pioneer Stone Burial Cairns · 5.1 mi · Historical Marker

    As you drive through pioneer cemeteries around Texas, you might spot unusual stone structures. These are pioneer burial cairns, built by early settlers to memorialize their dead. These surface structures, made of native…

  • The Unique Dining Capital of Texas · 5.2 mi

    You might see signs calling Roanoke the 'Unique Dining Capital of Texas.' That's not just a slick marketing slogan; it's the story of the town's modern revival. By the early 1990s, downtown Roanoke was quiet, its…

  • Byron Nelson's Fairway Ranch · 5.2 mi

    Just north of downtown Roanoke lies a piece of golf history. From 1946 until he died in 2006, this was the home of golf immortal Byron Nelson. At the peak of his career, having just completed the winningest season in…

  • Three Names, Two Moves, One Railroad · 5.2 mi

    Roanoke is here because a town got tired of being in the wrong place twice. It started in 1847, when twenty families from Missouri led by Louis and Charles Medlin settled the Travis Wright grant where Denton and…

  • The 1886 Rock Building · 5.2 mi

    As you explore historic Oak Street, you can't miss the sturdy stone building at 114 North Oak. This is the oldest commercial structure in town, known simply as the Rock Building. A stone mason named Lawrence Olson put…

  • The Medlin Cemetery Pioneers · 5.2 mi

    To find the oldest story around Roanoke you have to look just west of town, at a small graveyard on a hill called Medlin Cemetery. It starts long before the railroad. In 1847 Charles and Matilda Medlin came down from…

  • Spring Garden Community · 5.2 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…

  • Keller, TX · 5.3 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…

  • Double Springs to Athol to Keller in One Decade · 5.4 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 · 5.4 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 · 5.4 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 · 5.4 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 · 5.4 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…

  • The Quiet Engineering That Keeps Keller's Taps Pressurized · 5.4 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…

  • Flower Mound, TX · 5.5 mi

    Flower Mound's history is marked by pivotal moments that shaped its destiny. Settlers first used the area for religious camps in the 1840s, but it wasn't until the 1850s that permanent inhabitants arrived. The town…

  • The Graveyard That Started With a Buried Thief · 5.5 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.…

  • Riley Cemetery · 5.5 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…

  • Keller Methodist Church · 5.6 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving past Keller, where Methodists have been gathering for worship since the late 1800s. In 1897, Pastor W. K. Simpson officially organized the Keller Methodist Church. For years, they shared spaces with other…

  • Spring Garden School · 5.7 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…

  • Roanoke I.O.O.F. Cemetery · 5.7 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving past the Roanoke I.O.O.F. Cemetery, a resting place with a few surprising tales. The Independent Order of Oddfellows bought this land in 1897 for burials, but it was always open to everyone. The first…

  • Minter's Chapel Cemetery · 5.7 mi · Historical Marker

    You're passing Minter's Chapel Cemetery, a place that holds a story of faith and resilience. Around 1854, Lay Minister Green Minter helped start the Minter's Chapel Methodist Church right here. His son-in-law donated…

  • Minters Chapel Methodist Church · 5.7 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving past the site of Minters Chapel Methodist Church, a community cornerstone established way back in 1854. Four pioneer families banded together, holding early services in a log cabin on land donated by…

  • Texas HS Baseball Playoff Leaders 2026: Keller (Keller) · 5.8 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…

  • Texas HS Baseball Playoff Hits 2026: Keller (Keller) · 5.8 mi

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

  • Site of Oak Grove Methodist Church · 5.9 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 Sacred Hill in the Suburbs · 6.0 mi

    The most important place in Flower Mound is the one that gave the town its name. Just off the main road, there's a 12.5-acre hill about fifty feet high that seems unremarkable at first glance. But this mound is a sacred…

  • How a Dam Created a Suburb · 6.0 mi

    The western and southern edge of Flower Mound is defined by the sprawling shoreline of Grapevine Lake. But that lake isn't a natural feature - it's a massive feat of engineering that directly shaped the town you see…

  • The Town That Fought Off a City · 6.0 mi

    Flower Mound exists today because its residents decided to fight City Hall — another city's City Hall. In 1960 this was unincorporated Denton County land, a loose collection of farms and ranches, and Irving was annexing…

  • Flower Mound, TX · 6.0 mi

    In 1961, Flower Mound made a significant decision to incorporate as a town to avoid annexation by the City of Irving. This move was led by William Wilkerson, who became the town's second mayor and played a crucial role…

  • The Freeway That Built a City · 6.1 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…

  • The Boys Ranch · 6.1 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…

  • A Park Named for the Cattle-Drive Road · 6.1 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 H-E-B Partnership · 6.1 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 · 6.1 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…

  • The Missouri Colony · 6.2 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving past Grapevine, where in 1844, families from Platte County, Missouri, decided to put down roots. They called themselves the 'Missouri Colony' and were among the very first permanent settlers in all of…

  • The Flower Mound Itself, Saved by a Handful of Neighbors · 6.3 mi

    Pull up to 2400 Flower Mound Road, at the corner of FM 3040 and FM 2499, and you're looking at the actual hill the whole town is named for: a 12.576-acre island of native tallgrass prairie rising about fifty feet above…

  • Why the Mound Was Never Plowed · 6.3 mi

    The hill is covered in big bluestem, little bluestem, Indian grass, and switchgrass, native warm-season prairie grasses that grow chest-high but spend most of their lives below the surface. Their roots dive far deeper…

  • Bourland Cemetery · 6.3 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving past Bourland Cemetery, a final resting place that started as a family plot. Aurelius Delphus Bourland, a Civil War veteran and Primitive Baptist preacher, bought this land in 1873. He first used this…

  • The Town the Railroad Left Behind · 6.4 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 Boys Ranch in the Suburbs · 6.4 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…

  • Flower Mound · 6.4 mi · Historical Marker

    You're cruising past Flower Mound, Denton County. This smooth, dome-shaped hill got its name from the settlers who arrived in the 1840s, part of the Peters Colony. They saw it covered in wildflowers, rising fifty feet…

  • The Thunder of the Trinity Haka · 6.5 mi

    In Euless, the sound of Friday night is more than just cheering; it's the thunder of the Haka. At Trinity High School, home of the Trojans, the football team has a pre-game ritual that has become legendary across the…

  • The Airport That Built a City · 6.5 mi

    The single greatest engineering feat to shape Euless is the massive machine humming just north of the city: Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport. When it opened in 1974, it was the largest airport ever built. The…

  • A Homesick Name From Tennessee · 6.5 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…

  • Before Fort Worth, the County Capital Was Birdville · 6.5 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 · 6.5 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…

  • The Schoolhouse Saved by Two Votes to Spare · 6.5 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…

  • Euless, TX · 6.5 mi

    Euless, Texas, was named after Elisha Adam Euless, a Tennessee native who moved to Texas in 1867. He bought 170 acres of land at the intersection of North Main St. and West Euless Boulevard, where he started a cotton…

  • Arbor Daze: The Tree Festival · 6.5 mi

    Every spring, Euless celebrates trees. Arbor Daze is the city's signature event, and Euless has earned the right to it — more than thirty years running as a Tree City USA. The festival grew straight out of that: since…

  • The Suburb Built by an Airport · 6.6 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…

  • A New Dinosaur Found in a Road Cut · 6.6 mi

    In early 1994, a Dallas Paleontological Society member named Gary Byrd was poking around a fresh road cut on the southwest edge of Flower Mound, near Grapevine Lake, when he spotted bone in the dark shale. What he'd…

  • The Schoolhouse That Survived Fire, Then Arson · 6.6 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…

  • The Crash That Taught Aviation to Fear the Microburst · 6.6 mi

    At about six minutes past six in the evening on August 2, 1985, Delta Air Lines Flight 191, a wide-body Lockheed L-1011 TriStar inbound from Fort Lauderdale, dropped out of a thunderstorm short of the runway at…

  • The Town Named for a Hill Full of Flowers · 6.6 mi

    This whole town takes its name from a single hill. After Sam Houston settled a tribal dispute in 1844 and the raids in the area stopped, permanent settlers moved onto the rich Long Prairie soil to raise cotton, corn,…

  • The Master-Planned New Town That Won a Bum Steer · 6.6 mi

    In 1970, Flower Mound was picked to become a federally backed model city. Developers Raymond Nasher, the Dallas shopping-mall magnate later famous for his sculpture collection, and Edward S. Marcus, chairman of…

  • The NBA Star and the High School Named for a Failed Developer · 6.6 mi

    Flower Mound's biggest sports name went to a school with a quietly ironic backstory. Marcus Smart, born here in 1994, grew into one of the toughest defenders in basketball at Edward S. Marcus High School, leading his…

  • The Evening a Twister Crossed Southwest Flower Mound · 6.6 mi

    On the evening of April 24, 2007, a tornado dropped out of a storm over far southwest Flower Mound. It first touched down around 7:19 p.m. near Bolo Lane, just north of Grapevine Lake, snapping trees and tearing part of…

  • Pioneer Graves on the Old Long Prairie · 6.6 mi

    Out on FM 1171, also called Cross Timbers Road, just west of Shiloh Road, the Old Shiloh Cemetery holds some of the earliest settlers of this corner of Denton County. The ground here is part of the old Long Prairie…

  • A Steakhouse Named for the Year Texas Joined the Union · 6.6 mi

    Over in the Lakeside development at 2401 Lakeside Parkway, the steakhouse called 1845 Taste Texas wears its theme right in its name: 1845 is the year Texas left the republic and joined the United States. The dining room…

  • Bedford School · 6.6 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,…

  • Bedford, TX · 6.6 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…

  • Bedford Church of Christ · 6.6 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…

  • The Town That Carried Tennessee in Its Name · 6.7 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 · 6.7 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 · 6.7 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…

  • Hightower, Alfred Madison · 6.7 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 · 6.7 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…

  • Keller · 6.7 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…

  • Smithfield Cemetery · 6.7 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…

  • Bedford Cemetery · 6.7 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…

  • First Baptist Church of Keller · 6.7 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…

  • Smithfield Masonic Lodge No. 455 A.F. & A.M. · 6.7 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…

  • The Church That Gave the Town Its Name · 6.8 mi

    At 1501 Flower Mound Road stands a plain white wooden church that quietly started everything. In 1854 a farmer-preacher from Tennessee named Matthew B. Donald set aside ten acres here on Long Prairie for a church, a…

  • The Oldest Building in Town Was Built From the Ranches Around It · 6.8 mi

    The handsome two-story stone building at 114 North Oak Street is the oldest commercial structure still standing in Roanoke, raised in 1886, just five years after the railroad created the town. Brothers Robert and…

  • The Door Between the Bank and the Brothel · 6.8 mi

    Stand on Oak Street after dark and the old Rock Building at number 114 keeps a secret upstairs. Local legend, the kind that's whispered more than documented, holds that the second floor of the Sneads' Silver Spur Saloon…

  • The Fried Chicken Joint That Started a Whole Downtown · 6.8 mi

    If you want to taste the spot where Roanoke's whole dining-capital story began, it's Babe's Chicken Dinner House at 104 North Oak Street. This is the original Babe's, opened in April 1993, the first of what grew into a…

  • Renamed for a Foreman's Bargain · 6.8 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…

  • Marshall Creek, TX · 6.8 mi

    Once a small, independent town, Marshall Creek's history is marked by pivotal moments that led to its consolidation with Roanoke in 2007. Initially, residents were drawn to the area in the late 1960s for its affordable…

  • Keller, TX · 6.8 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…

  • Flower Mound, TX · 6.8 mi · Tsha Handbook

    You're driving through Flower Mound, a community named for a distinctive fifty-foot-high hill covered in Indian paintbrush. Settlers were drawn here after Sam Houston settled a tribal dispute in 1844, ending local…

  • The Bank That Backed the Ranches and the Town's Big Vote · 6.8 mi

    The most adorned old building on Oak Street is the Continental State Bank at 312 North Oak Street, built in 1906 to handle the money of the ranching families who made Roanoke matter, the Sneads, the Medlins, and the…

  • Keller, TX · 6.8 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…

  • Bedford Reunion · 6.8 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…

  • Roanoke Water Tower · 6.8 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving through Roanoke, and you might notice an old steel tower piercing the sky. That's the Roanoke Water Tower, built back in <say-as interpret-as="date" format="y">1936</say-as>. It wasn't just a water tank;…

  • Roanoke · 6.8 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving through Roanoke, a town that owes its very existence to the railroad. In 1881, the Texas & Pacific Railroad laid its tracks here, establishing this very community. It was named by a surveyor who hailed…

  • Flower Mound Presbyterian Church · 6.8 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving past the site of the very first Presbyterian church in Denton County. Organized way back in 1854 by Reverend Matthew B. Donald, worship here began in people's homes. They built their first log church…

  • Roanoke Lodge No. 668 A.F. & A.M. · 6.8 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving through Roanoke, and right here is the site of the Roanoke Lodge No. 668, chartered way back in 1888. This Masonic Lodge actually replaced an earlier one in Elizabethtown. For years, members met in rented…

  • Smithfield Baptist Church · 6.8 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 Methodist Church · 6.8 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…

  • Smithfield Church of Christ · 6.8 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…

  • Flower Mound Cemetery · 6.8 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving past Flower Mound Cemetery, a place that started with a farmer's generous gift. Matthew Doyle arrived in 1854 and immediately set aside ten acres for a church, campground, and this cemetery. He even…

  • Where Sam Houston Camped to Make Peace · 6.9 mi

    The shaded ground at Grapevine Springs Park has drawn people for a very long time, water historians say the springs have attracted visitors for more than 2,000 years. The most famous gathering came in 1843, when…

  • How a Tiny Town Became the 'Unique Dining Capital of Texas' · 6.9 mi

    It is not bragging if the Legislature put it in writing. In 2009 the 81st Texas Legislature passed House Concurrent Resolution 188 and officially crowned Roanoke 'The Unique Dining Capital of Texas,' citing the…

  • The City That Owns a Piece of an Airport · 6.9 mi

    Most people never realize that part of Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport sits inside Coppell's city limits, roughly 266 acres of the airport's footprint falls within the town. When DFW opened in 1974, that border…

  • The Lost Springs That Came Back to Life · 6.9 mi

    Near 712 North Main Street sits one of Keller's strangest second acts. This is roughly where the original settlement of Double Springs stood, named for two natural springs near the headwaters of Big Bear Creek. When the…

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