Historic Grand Prairie

HISTORIC GRAND PRAIRIE
An Illustrated History
by Kathy A. Goolsby
A publication of the Grand Prairie Historical Organization

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HISTORIC GRAND PRAIRIE
An Illustrated History
by Kathy A. Goolsby
Commissioned by the Grand Prairie Historical Organization
Historical Publishing Network
A division of Lammert, Inc.
San Antonio, Texas

❖
A bird’s-eye view of downtown Grand Prairie, c. the late 1940s. The large building in the foreground is the Brown Cracker Company, which later was torn down to widen
Jefferson Boulevard.
First Edition
Copyright © 2008 Historical Publishing Network
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, without permission in writing
from the publisher. All inquiries should be addressed to Historical Publishing Network, 11555 Galm Road, Suite 100, San Antonio, Texas, 78254. Phone (800) 749-9790.
ISBN: 9781893619845
Library of Congress Card Catalog Number: 2008923662
Historic Grand Prairie: An Illustrated History
author: Kathy A. Goolsby
cover artist: Randy Souders
contributing writer for “Sharing the Heritage”: Eric Dabney
Historical Publishing Network
president: Ron Lammert
project manager: Joe Bowman
administration: Donna M. Mata, Diane Perez, Evelyn Hart, Melissa Quinn
book sales: Dee Steidle
production: Colin Hart, Craig Mitchell, Charles A. Newton III,
Roy Arellano
PRINTED IN KOREA
2 ✦ HISTORIC GRAND PRAIRIE

CONTENTS
4 DEDICATION & SPECIAL THANKS
5 THE HISTORY OF GRAND PRAIRIE
52 SHARING THE HERITAGE
91 SPONSORS
92 ABOUT THE AUTHOR
❖
Millar Drug Store in the 1940s. Dewey Millar opened the store at 106 W. Main Street in 1927, selling ice cream and sodas at the fountain and medications at the counter.
Contents ✦ 3

DEDICATION
For my father, Maurice Haley Goolsby, and my late mother, Jo Ann (Huddleston) Goolsby, who led me through the
past; my daughters, Amy Marie (Edgar) Edwards and Rachel Ann Edgar, who keep me grounded in the present; and my
granddaughter, Charlotte JoAnn Edwards, who brings promise for the future. I love you all.
SPECIAL THANKS
A writer mostly toils alone, yet delving into the past involves a host of helpers, supporters and storytellers who ensure
the font of knowledge is always overflowing. To those who supported and encouraged me through this process, I give
thanks: Angela Sutton Giessner, Brian Wyatt Bingham, Jan Barrett, and the members of the Grand Prairie Historical
Organization for their faith in my research and writing abilities; Amy Sprinkles, Whitney Fowler, Cami McKillop, and
the Grand Prairie city staff for their computer skills and resources; Kathy Ritterhouse and the Grand Prairie Memorial
Library staff for their archives and assistance; my editors and the management at The Dallas Morning News for supporting
my endeavors; Charles “Billy” Powers, for his excellent tour and use of his wonderful photo collection; Aubrey Williams
for his invaluable counsel; Dr. Vern Alexander for sharing his dissertation; and Horace Victor Copeland, Jr., Pauline
Jasper McCulley, Dorothy Brown, Shirley Reed Wilkins, Bebe Bingham, Billie Mack Toomer, Zelma Adkins, and Rita
Peterson for sharing family photos and memories.
4 ✦ HISTORIC GRAND PRAIRIE

THE HISTORY OF GRAND PRAIRIE
DEATH ON THE PRAIRIE
It was a hasty burial, done while her younger sons stood vigil on three nearby hills, watching
for Indians.
Elizabeth Goodwin was newly arrived on the prairies of North Texas when she died on October
24, 1846. The mother of eleven children had traveled by covered wagon with her husband, Micajah,
and their nine surviving children from Georgia, by way of Alabama, in February 1846.
When Elizabeth died nine months later, she was laid to rest in a simple wooden coffin built using
lumber from the wagon that brought her to the frontier. Her grave was dug on son Jesse’s 320-acre
survey near the northeast corner of today’s State Highway 360 North and Interstate 30 intersection.
While her boys watched for Indians, Elizabeth’s grave was covered, then wagons were rolled across
and brush burned on top of it.
The extra care was taken to disguise the site from the Indians, who were known to dig up
graves. Their intent was not desecration, but simple curiosity about what the White Man had put in
the ground.
Patrick A. Watson purchased the land surrounding Elizabeth’s burial site in 1853, a year after
he arrived from Alabama. He set aside a half-acre plot for a graveyard that became Watson Cemetery.
Today, Elizabeth’s grave is tucked away in a corner of the cemetery that’s a stone’s throw from
Grand Prairie’s western edge. Her burial site is erratically encircled with weathered Woodbine
sandstone rocks. A large, square stone on one side spells out “Goodwin,” its hand-carved letters
almost indecipherable.
❖
Woodbine sandstone rocks encircle the
grave of Elizabeth Goodwin, who died
on October 24, 1846. She is buried in
the southeast corner of Watson
Cemetery near State Highway 360
North and Interstate 30.
The History of Grand Prairie ✦ 5

❖
Above: Micajah Goodwin built this
cabin around 1850 just north of
Trading House Creek (now Johnson
Creek) on the Tarrant County and
Dallas County lines. The cabin was
later moved to Cottonwood Park (now
McFalls Park) but was destroyed by
fire in 2003.
Opposite, top: David Jordan brought
his family from Tennessee in the
1840s. There is debate on whether the
home was built by Mr. Jordan before
1850, or by his son, David A. Jordan,
after 1859. The homestead served as
a stage stand in northeast Grand
Prairie before Victor Bowles bought
it in 1886. It was donated to the city
in 1951.
Opposite, bottom: The Jordan-Hight
Cemetery was established in 1866 by
David Jordan after his son-in-law,
Robert A. Hight, died of a fever.
On that day in October 1846, Elizabeth
became the first known white woman buried in
Tarrant County. With the establishment of a
cemetery, her family and other pioneers put
down roots and laid the foundation on which
their community would grow.
Four years after his wife’s death, on March
29, 1850, Micajah Goodwin was issued a
Republic of Texas Land Grant in Peters Colony
for 640 acres on the West Fork of the Trinity
River. He built a small cabin just north of
Trading House Creek (now Johnson Creek) on
the Tarrant and Dallas County lines, about three
miles northeast of his wife’s grave.
PRAIRIE LANDS & INDIANS
Many of Grand Prairie’s early settlers were
attracted by the same attributes that enabled
numerous Indian tribes to flourish there for
centuries. The soil was rich and fertile, and the
tall grasses provided grazing grounds for large
herds of horses and buffalo.
The prairies were split by a narrow line
of trees, known as Cross Timbers, which
extended from the Red River southward to Hill
County. To the east was the Blackland Prairie
and, on the western side, the seven-million-acre
Grand Prairie.
Addie McDermett, who came to Dallas a year
after the Goodwins’ arrival, remembered the
prairies were covered with flowers from which
wild bees made an abundance of honey.
Dewberries and grapes grew wild, and the
area was teeming with deer, wild turkeys,
quail, prairie chickens, wolves, bears, panthers,
and wildcats.
“Wild geese and ducks flew in incredible
numbers and flocks of blackbirds darkened the
sky,” Mrs. McDermett told The Dallas Morning
News in 1925. “There were no buffalo nearer
than Mountain Creek or Grand Prairie.”
Today, buffalo wallows attesting to the area’s
one-time abundance of bison can be found in a
protected preserve on the southwest corner of
Corn Valley and Freetown roads. The buffalo
formed the wallows by rolling in the dirt and
mud to ward off flies and mosquitoes.
By the time the Goodwins arrived, Texas had
been a republic for ten years. Most of the local
Indian tribes, including the Caddo, Kickapoo,
Tawakoni, Waco, and Wichita, had signed a
peace treaty with the Republic of Texas on
September 29, 1843, at Bird’s Fort, about three
miles northwest of the Watson Community. The
few remaining Indians were being pushed north
into Oklahoma and further west, but occasional
Indian raids still kept the settlers on edge.
The dwindling number of Indians in North
Texas caused John Neely Bryan to abandon his
dream of opening an Indian trading post at the
Trinity River fork in 1841. Instead, he established
a town, and by 1845, Dallas had a doctor, a
lawyer and enough residents to cast thirty-two
votes on the issue of annexation. All but two
voted in favor of Texas joining the Union.
Micajah Goodwin helped shape Dallas
County’s government, serving on numerous
juries and as commissioner of the West District
in 1848 and again in 1850. But when a survey
showed that most of his property was in Tarrant
County, Micajah Goodwin was replaced by
David Bradshaw, who arrived from Arkansas the
same year as the Goodwins. Bradshaw’s 640-
acre land grant was near present-day Northwest
Nineteenth Street and Egyptian Way.
In the spring of 1853, Charles DeMorse,
founder of The Standard newspaper in Clarksville,
Red River County, recounted a visit with Micajah
Goodwin. After a day trip to fish in the pond near
Bird’s Fort, the remnants of which had
disappeared, the party returned to the Goodwin
place, which Mr. DeMorse described thusly:
6 ✦ HISTORIC GRAND PRAIRIE

…a most lovely place, with timber and
prairie nicely proportioned, a clear running
creek beside him, a jewel of a little valley
between him and the creek, covered with
luxurious mesquite grass…and around him,
south and east, the prairie rises into a hill, from
which the view is inspiring…Mr. Goodwin says
he never fails to make 40 or 50 bushels of corn
to the acre, and on two acres of corn sown in
wheat, last spring made 49 bushels.
A STAGE STOP ON
THE PRAIRIE
There was no town of Grand Prairie in the
1840s and ’50s. Rather, farms and family
enclaves were scattered throughout the area.
From Dallas, settlers often passed through Eagle
Ford, near present-day Cockrell Hill, where the
river was more easily crossed.
In the 1840s, David Jordan came to Grand
Prairie with his sons from Tennessee, bringing the
area’s first slaves. His home was south of the West
Fork Trinity River near present-day MacArthur
Boulevard and Northeast Thirty-first Street.
Milled wood was scarce at the time, so Jordan
sent for lumber in the East Texas town of
Jefferson. According to his great-great-grandson,
Thomas Hight, Sr., it took two trips to obtain
the building materials.
“Some people in Mansfield came over to say
they wanted to build a church, and they talked
him out of that lumber,” Hight said. “So he had
to send back to Jefferson and get a second load,
which took about a month. The house was built
by slaves using the lumber and limestone rock
out of the Trinity River bottom.”
County records show that in 1860, Jordan
owned 12 slaves, ages 4 to 65, and two slave
houses. Tax rolls for the following year placed
the value on the “12 negroes” at $7,000.
Jordan’s homestead became one of two stage
stops between Dallas and Fort Worth, the other
being Johnson Station, now part of Arlington.
The Butterfield Stage Mail Route, which ran from
St. Louis to California from 1858 to 1861, also
changed horses at the Jordan station. The
homestead also had a merchandise store and the
area’s first school, taught by a Mr. Godfrey.
Before he came to Texas, David Jordan was a
widower in Tennessee whose 14-year-old
daughter, Martha Ann, had fallen in love with
her 20-year-old teacher. Martha married Robert
A. Hight against her father’s wishes just before
David Jordan left for Texas, but David later
married his son-in-law’s sister, Elizabeth Hight.
Martha and Robert Hight followed her father
to Texas, settling in the Duncanville area. When
Robert died of a fever while serving in the
Confederate Army in 1866, Martha wanted to
bury him near their home. She agreed to a
burial near the Jordan ranch after her father set
aside an acre of land for the family cemetery, on
the corner of today’s MacArthur Boulevard and
Johnson Street.
The History of Grand Prairie ✦ 7

❖
The Jordan-Bowles home was moved
to the corner of Graham and
Northeast Twenty-eighth Street and
the surrounding parkland named
Bowles Park. The city opened Bowles
Life Center in the park in 2006.
Victor Bowles bought the Jordan home in
1886. It passed to his daughter, Minnie Bowles,
who remodeled the property before giving it to
the city in 1951. The Jordan-Bowles home is now
a museum in Bowles Park at the corner of Graham
and Northeast Twenty-eighth Streets. The park
also is home to the new Bowles Life Center.
MORE SETTLERS ON
THE PRAIRIE
J. F. and Wilmoth (Robertson) Poindexter and
J. A. Upchurch also were among the first families
to settle in the Grand Prairie area. Originally
from Illinois, the Poindexters bought land south
of today’s downtown where their son, J. B.
Poindexter, was born in 1849. The Upchurches
arrived from Tennessee in 1846; eventually, the
two families would unite through marriage.
Governor H. R. Runnels issued a land grant
to brothers William and Walter Caruth in 1850.
Eleven years later, their 239-1/2 acres would
play an important role in Grand Prairie’s
development.
The Pinkney H. Ford family migrated from
Kentucky around 1855. According to his
granddaughter, the Fords came upon P.A.
Watson’s large acreage and asked about land in
the area. Mr. Watson mentioned a nearby tract,
telling Mr. Ford he should go immediately and
begin plowing it to stake his claim.
The next morning, a young man came by
who also had heard about the land from Mr.
Watson, but left when he saw the Fords. Mr.
Watson later said he liked the Fords better, so he
advised Mr. Ford to claim the property that day.
Mr. Ford built a 1-1/2 story home, and other
family members homesteaded in the area. He
bought wagons and teams of oxen to haul
freight for the soldiers between Fort Worth
and Galveston.
Brothers Joe, Young, and Dan Robertson came
to North Texas from Illinois in the early 1850s.
Dan married Micajah Goodwin’s daughter, Eliza,
following the death of her husband, Henry
Balsmier, and the couple settled northwest of
Grand Prairie.
Lewis Clifton came to the area with the
Washington Trayler family in 1854. Mr. Trayler
purchased 160 acres of the John J. Goodwin
survey in 1857. Clifton, who was married to
Washington and Mariah Trayler’s daughter,
helped his father-in-law build a home on the
property’s southern end, and by the next year,
he and his wife owned the northern half.
Mariah Trayler died in June 1858 and is the
earliest known grave in the Ford family
cemetery. Washington Trayler died six years
later and is buried next to her.
Another early settler to the area was Thomas
Vernoy. The New York native married Julia Ann
Bast, whose family had come from Indiana. The
couple first settled on Cottonwood Creek before
moving a few miles further south to the Fish Creek
area. Their daughter, Julia Mariah, was born
Christmas Day 1855; she married Christopher
Columbus Barrett, Sr., at age seventeen and the
couple moved to northwest Grand Prairie.
The year 1855 also marked the beginning of
La Reunion, a utopian community of French
settlers led by Victor Considerant. Members
would share the settlement’s profits
proportionate to the work done, but La Reunion
was situated a few miles west of Dallas on soil
not suited for farming. Add to that a harsh
winter and summer droughts, and La Reunion
was soon abandoned. Most of the residents
moved across the Trinity River to Dallas, but
some made their way west to the Grand Prairie
and Cedar Hill areas.
Among them was the Goetsell family, whose
Belgian-born patriarch was a stockholder in the
failed French settlement. He moved his family
to the Mountain Creek area and formed a new
8 ✦ HISTORIC GRAND PRAIRIE

settlement he named New-Lowen after his
native city in Belgium.
Mr. Goetsell died there in 1860, two years
after the birth of his son, John P. Goetsell. Most
of the family moved to Dallas in 1867, but
John’s older brother Philip opened a small store
in the Fish Creek area of present-day Grand
Prairie, where he died in 1879.
Francis “Marion” Loyd, born in 1835, was
barely walking when his family left Illinois for
Arkansas. His mother, Ann Loyd, died after
giving birth to her ninth child, and John Loyd
moved the family to Texas. They settled on the
Trinity River a few miles west of Dallas in 1856.
Marion and his younger brother James
wanted room to run cattle, so in 1857 they
moved to seventy-eight acres of grassy prairie in
southeastern Tarrant County. By 1860, the
entire Loyd clan had followed. Later that year,
John Loyd left to round up cattle in the creek
bottom and never returned. His family assumed
thieves or Indians had killed him.
Loyd family history says that in the 1880s, a
home was built using milled pecan and post oak
lumber from Eagle Ford. In addition to the tworoom
Cumberland house, the homestead
included a carriage house, a brick-lined cellar,
several barns and a livestock corral.
Marion Loyd dug a 120-foot-deep well in 1885
and invited neighbors to use it. The homestead
soon became a stopping place for travelers
seeking water. The Loyds also started a school that
was attended by family and neighbors.
Today, the property is part of Loyd Park on
the shores of Joe Pool Lake and the family home
still stands.
Robert Copeland brought his family to North
Texas in 1854, but bypassed the Grand Prairie
area in favor of Johnson Station, now in
Arlington. The Copelands had sold their
Kentucky plantation with all their belongings
and slaves after the death of their 16-year-old
daughter, and headed to Texas with their 10
children. They paid $1,200 for 1,600 acres near
Johnson Station.
In a letter dated January 9, 1855, Mrs.
Copeland wrote, “The roads are awful, prices are
❖
Left: Two early settler families were
joined together in the early 1870s
when Julia Mariah Vernoy married
Christopher Columbus Barrett Sr. This
circa 1910 photo shows the Barrett
family in front of their home on
today’s Egyptian Way: (left to right)
Tom and Kitty Barrett, neighbor Betty
Gray Duvall, Julia Mariah Vernoy
Barrett, Christopher Columbus
Barrett Jr., Will Barrett, Jettie Mae
Barrett Duvall, family friend Tom
Payne, Christopher Columbus Barrett
Sr., and Jack Bast.
Below: The 1880s Loyd home
still stands in Loyd Park near Joe
Pool Lake.
The History of Grand Prairie ✦ 9

❖
The area around Francis “Marion”
Loyd’s homestead in south Grand
Prairie is a 791-acre park on Joe Pool
Lake. Hiking, biking and equestrian
trails are a major draw to the park.
high, people are rascally, and we have had
narrow escapes of losing our lives.”
She noted that pork cost 6 cents, corn was 75
cents a bushel, hens were 20 cents, and a pound
of butter cost 25 cents. Even worse, flour was
$17 a barrel and Mrs. Copeland wrote that the
children would not be eating biscuits.
When the War Between the States began in
1861, Robert Copeland became captain of
Company H, 25th Tennessee Infantry. His son,
T. B. Copeland, served four years under his
father’s command.
When the war ended in 1865, T. B. Copeland
settled on a farm near the Watson Community.
He and his wife, Callie, had ten children, five of
whom lived to adulthood. Horace Victor
Copeland, their oldest son, born in 1875, would
have a lifelong—and often lifesaving—influence
on the people of Grand Prairie.
WAR COMES TO TEXAS
Regiments were formed across Texas, with
many Grand Prairie men serving in the Southern
forces. The Federal forces quickly moved to
block ports in the Gulf of Mexico, curtailing
supplies throughout the war.
That caused prices to skyrocket, as noted by
T. L. Nash in a January 1862 letter to his son,
C. L. Lafe Nash, who was fighting in the
Confederate forces.
Coffee was forty cents a pound while the
price of goods sold by farmers had gone down,
T. L. Nash said. Pork was worth just 6 cents a
pound, wheat only 80 cents to a dollar per
bushel, and corn 50 cents per bushel.
To make matters worse, much of North Texas
was suffering through one of the warmest and
driest winters T. L. Nash had ever seen. The
creeks were dry and the stock suffering, but he
assured his son that at least in the immediate
area, the crops and livestock were holding
their own:
Talk of war and secession was strong by the
time Abraham Lincoln won the Republican
nomination for president in 1860. Southern
politicians acted quickly to protect their interests.
In December, South Carolina became the first
state to secede from the Union; Texas followed in
February 1861, becoming the seventh of eleven
states in the Confederate States of America.
A great deal of wheat is dying for want of
rain, so I hear people say beyond White Rock
Creek. Ours is looking very well and keeping
our horses and calves finely. We sowed 100 acres
and it all looks well at this time.
Four of Micajah Goodwin’s sons enrolled in a
company of Mounted Volunteers under the
10 ✦ HISTORIC GRAND PRAIRIE

command of Captain M. J. Brinson at Johnson
Station. Only John J. Goodwin would return.
Charles A. Goodwin and Joel M. Goodwin died
in 1862, probably from measles or typhoid, and
Williamson L. Goodwin was killed in battle near
Marietta, Georgia, in 1864.
Many of the men from the Watson
Community joined Captain Brinson’s group,
including Henry D. Thompson, husband of
Micajah’s daughter Nancy and owner of a 320-
acre survey issued in 1858. He was discharged
in December 1862.
Lewis Clifton also was in Captain Brinson’s
brigade. He died of typhoid in Mississippi on
June 10, 1862.
Pinkney Ford served as a mounted volunteer
in the Johnson Station Rangers. Other area
soldiers included C. C. McGlothin and James W.
Bolin, Company K, 10th Missouri infantry; John
B. Parker, Company D, 17th North Carolina
infantry; and Thomas Daniel Allen.
Several Confederate Army veterans are
buried in Estes Cemetery, which was established
by James Estes about 1855, near present-day Joe
Pool Lake in far southwest Grand Prairie. Jacob
B. Black was a fourth sergeant in Darnell’s
Company, and Napoleon B. Perry served in
Company A, 15th Cavalry.
FOUNDING
FATHER
When the Civil War began, another North
Texan was trying to ensure his family’s
future before joining the Confederate forces.
Those efforts would eventually earn Alexander
MacRae Dechman the title of Grand Prairie’s
“Founding Father.”
Dechman was twenty-one when he
journeyed to Texas from his native Nova Scotia
in 1851. John James had invited him to San
Antonio, where a $500-a-year clerk’s position
awaited Dechman at the general merchandise
firm of James R. Sweet & Company.
Dechman took a steamer from New York to
the Gulf of Mexico, then up the channel to Port
Lavaca. From there it was a two-day stage trip
through “beautiful but sparsely populated
country” to San Antonio.
In his later years, Dechman wrote an account
of his life, describing the bustling town of about
seven thousand people:
An immense business was done. All
Merchandise was Transported in Mexican Carts
with only 2 wheels and drawn by Oxen with
Yokes wrapped around their Horns with Raw
Hide ropes. Wagons transported Goods into
❖
These markers in Watson Cemetery
honor Micajah and Elizabeth
Goodwin’s four sons, who served in
the Confederate Army during the
Civil War. Charles and Joel died in
1862, probably of typhoid or
measles, and Williamson died in
battle two years later; only John
survived the war. The circle of rocks
in the background marks their
mother’s grave.
The History of Grand Prairie ✦ 11

Mexico in immense wagons drawn by 6 pair and
8 pair of Mexican Mules.
❖
A copy of the deed Alexander McRae
Dechman filed with Dallas County on
Jan. 2, 1863. He later platted a town
on the site that initially was called
Dechman, but renamed Grand Prairie
in 1877.
Dechman spent two years with the firm,
which primarily transported goods, mail and
passengers seven hundred miles to El Paso. He
then switched firms, and in 1855 accompanied
carts laden with merchandise and government
supplies to Fort Belknap, about fifty miles westnorthwest
of Fort Worth.
He set up shop and began what he described
as a dangerous business with outlaws, soldiers
from the fort, cattlemen and Indians, including
“Wacoes, Shawnees, Kickapoos, Tonkaways
and Comanchees.”
Dechman made the 20-day, 400-mile journey
between Fort Belknap and San Antonio
numerous times to replenish supplies. He
married Mary Eliza Mills in 1857 and they ran a
boarding house, sold general merchandise and
maintained a station for the Butterfield Overland
Mail Company. Alexander Dechman also served
as postmaster and chief justice of Young County.
But a decline in business and fear of Indian
attacks led Alexander to sell his property in
1859, trading some for a wagon and oxen. He
moved his family in 1860, first to Navarro near
Corsicana, then a year later to Birdville, now
Haltom City.
By then Alexander was anxious to join the
Confederate cause but first wanted to provide
for his family’s future. In 1861, he learned he
could trade his oxen and a wagon for land in
Dallas County.
“So to Dallas I went,” he wrote, “and there
traded them off to W. Caruth & Bro for 239
acres of prairie land on East of the Trinity River
and 100 acres of Timber land on the west of
the river.”
He tried to build a home on the property but
soon abandoned the idea. Instead, he rented a
farm in Birdville for his wife and children before
going to Dallas in June 1862 to enlist as a
private in Company E, 19th Regiment of the
Texas Calvary. Alexander Dechman, who served
his military time in North Texas, filed the title
for his prairie land on January 2, 1863.
During his absence, Mary Dechman opened
a boarding house for schoolchildren, and
rented and cultivated additional farmland for
cash crops.
My Noble wife who knew nothing of work,
or labor, took hold of things, cheerful in carding
wool and cotton, spinning it into thread and
weaving on her own loom with her own hands
into cloth for clothing, sheets, blankets, etc,
succeeding in all her plans for the support of the
family and clothing me and other soldiers during
the war.
Mary also purchased two hundred acres
using Confederate money. Her husband
returned from war in 1865 and two years later,
the Dechmans sold that Birdville property. They
moved to Bryan where he worked as a carpenter
and merchant.
Meanwhile, a small community had sprung
up on his prairie property. A post office opened
in October 1874, and until August 1877 was
known as Deckman, so-named because
someone misread the name.
Alexander Dechman granted the Texas and
Pacific Railroad a right-of-way through his
property, and service from Eagle Ford to Fort
Worth began on July 19, 1876. That same year,
he filed a town plat and gave every other lot to
the railroad company.
Alexander Dechman moved to the
community in 1877. His oldest son, Alexander,
owned a general store at 215 South Center
Street and lived on the street’s north end.
12 ✦ HISTORIC GRAND PRAIRIE

Unfortunately, business was slow and the elder
Dechman soon abandoned the idea of settling in
his namesake town.
It was just as well, since the town’s name was
again changed, this time to Grand Prairie. A
popular legend says the name came about after
a woman stepped off a train and exclaimed, “My,
what a grand prairie!” More likely it derived
from the town’s location on the eastern edge of
the Grand Prairie that stretched into west Texas.
The elder Alexander Dechman finally settled
in Waxahachie. On August 25, 1890, his son
Thomas sold the remaining town lots west of the
Trinity to M. M. Miller for $7,000.
Mary Eliza Dechman died in 1903, and
Alexander MacRae Dechman passed away in
1915. The couple is buried in Greenwood
Cemetery in Dallas.
NEWFOUND
FREEDOM
With the end of the Civil War came the
emancipation of slaves and new settlements in
Grand Prairie.
In the 1870s and 1880s, freed slaves settled
in the Shady Grove area of north Grand Prairie,
establishing the Bear Creek and Frogtown
communities. They were attracted to the area by
the creek and ample food supply.
Helen Reed Harden with the Grand Prairie
Historical Commission wrote that the area had
three black churches before 1900.
Mt. Elam Baptist Church was organized
about 1881 on land donated by Charles Rogers,
a former slave who moved from Dallas to
Frogtown, just off Belt Line Road. Flooding
forced the congregants to move the church
about a mile west to Oakdale Road.
Shady Grove Colored Methodist Episcopal
Church in Bear Creek was organized in 1882.
The church at Gilbert and Rock Island Roads
was built by S. L. Lowe in 1898 and rebuilt by
J. W. Keller in 1942.
Allen Chapel A.M.E., also at Gilbert and Rock
Island roads, was organized in 1889 on land
donated by Julie Patterson. Others who helped
found the church were the Trigg, Boles, Ernest
(Frog) Davis, and Doshua Jordores families.
Mose Jordan, a slave brought to the area by
David Jordan, was probably the first black man
in Grand Prairie. After emancipation, he and
two other families established Freetown east of
Grand Prairie on land now under Mountain
Creek Lake.
A black cemetery was established there in
1894, and the community had a church and
school. By the time the Freetown Common
School District was merged with the Grand
❖
Early Grand Prairie settlers were
drawn to the area in part by the
ample water supply provided by the
creeks, including Fish Creek (shown).
In recent years, the city has
established hiking and biking trails
along several of the creeks.
The History of Grand Prairie ✦ 13

Prairie district in 1940, students in the 320-acre
district were attending Grand Prairie schools.
ON THE ROAD IN
GRAND PRAIRIE
Before the train came, travel was often
difficult and risky. Many roads were little more
than narrow dirt paths that became mired with
mud when it rained.
Horseback was the fastest way to travel since
wagons were difficult to extricate from the mud.
For more serious trips, a stage ran daily between
Dallas and Fort Worth.
In the early 1870s, robbers attacked the stage
out of Fort Worth as it neared the Jordan stand.
The masked men fired into the coach being
driven by Big Foot Charlie, according to G. E.
(Ed) Cornwall, a deputy sheriff from 1876 to
1878 and later a Dallas police officer. After
taking the passengers’ valuables, the bandits
took to the woods.
It was said that they hardly realized enough
from the enterprise to pay for the powder and
bullets they used in intimidating the passengers.
The stagecoach was full of bullet holes when it
was brought back to Dallas, but strange to say,
the passengers escaped without a scratch.
Sheriff Jerry Brown and a posse went in pursuit
of the bandits, but never caught up with them.
Rumors abounded that the Sam Bass Gang
had robbed the passengers, but the identity of
Grand Prairie’s bandits was never proven.
A HUSBAND’ S GRIEF
In 1872 a wagon train passed through the
area about seven miles south of Dechman’s land.
Charles N. Wilson and his wife Ophelia were
part of the group headed for California.
As they reached the Webb Community in
southeast Tarrant County, Ophelia Wilson went
into labor just as a storm came up. Charles told
the others they would catch up.
Ophelia gave birth to a daughter, but she and
the child died during delivery. Charles buried
his wife and daughter, then dug up four oak
saplings from a creek. He replanted them at the
grave’s four corners to mark the site.
The grieving man stopped at William Lynn’s
nearby home to explain what he’d done before
moving on, presumably to rejoin the wagon
train headed west. Around 1893, James and
Mattie Curry Bowlin buried their infant son next
to Ophelia and her baby.
Although Charles Wilson was not seen again
in the community, a woman identifying herself
as his daughter sought out the graves in the
early 1930s. Local residents helped her erect a
fence around the graves. Today, the tiny
cemetery with its three souls is preserved in
Lynn Creek Park.
COTTON AND THE TRAIN
COME TO GRAND PRAIRIE
Many of the first pioneers around Grand
Prairie were cattlemen who grew crops for food.
Others grew cash crops of corn and wheat,
taking the grain to one of several mills along the
Trinity River.
Around 1870, local farmers began to realize
the black soil where prairie grasses grew tall
also made an excellent growing medium for
another crop.
G. E. Cornwall of Dallas credited Hamp
Hardin with bringing cotton to North Texas
when he moved from Tyler around 1868. Mr.
Hardin rented a Dallas field bounded on two
sides by Ross Avenue and Akard Street, and
pitched it in cotton. Cornwall told The Dallas
Morning News in 1923:
Mr. Hardin no doubt knew what he was doing,
but his undertaking was looked upon by the
natives generally as an experiment of doubtful
outcome. Many oldtimers, in fact, stuck to it that
cotton could not be grown here until Mr. Hardin
had harvested more than a bale to the acre. As a
small boy, I assisted in picking the crop.
Dallas soon became the hub of the North
Texas cotton industry. Farmers brought their
bales to market by the wagonload.
Albert K. Hurst, a Dallas clothing store
clerk, said the city’s merchants relied heavily on
those farmers. Sales always rose with their
arrival, he remembered in a 1923 Dallas
Morning News article:
During the fall and early winter months the
streets were jammed with wagons that
14 ✦ HISTORIC GRAND PRAIRIE

concentrated here the cotton produced within a
radius of seventy-five miles. The cotton market
was Elm Street, from Poydras to the river, where
the farmers stopped their wagons and the buyers
ran their hooks into the bales and brought out
samples…People still traveled largely by wagon,
camping at night…their tents and fires were
thick on all roads just outside the city limits.
Those coming from Grand Prairie crossed the
Trinity River at Eagle Ford, eight miles west of
Dallas. The little hamlet became an overnight
boomtown when the Panic of 1873 halted
railroad construction there.
Within a year, fifty new stores, homes and
buildings sprang up at the end of the train
tracks, giving Dechman’s families a closer
market for goods unavailable in their shops.
Some speculated that Eagle Ford would
outgrow Dallas.
Its glory days were short-lived, however, as
the 1873 depression eased and the Texas and
Pacific Railroad resumed laying tracks
westward. The line was extended through
Grand Prairie into Fort Worth in 1876. Eagle
Ford remained a shipping terminus for lumber
and other industries, but Fort Worth soon took
over as the area’s major cattle shipper. Eagle
Ford was annexed by Dallas in 1952.
The year before the train arrived in Grand
Prairie, J. B. Poindexter married Elenor Upchurch.
The couple lived in a log cabin on the family land,
later purchased by Dallas Power and Light
Company, and had seven children.
Mr. Poindexter, who died in 1914, would say
that land was plentiful when they married and
oxen hard to come by. Land around the Dallas
courthouse could be bought for a yoke of oxen,
but if he made the trade he would have no oxen
for plowing the land.
❖
Above: After the death of her
husband, Antoine Faucher, Louise
(Grimm) Faucher married N. Tom
Keith. The couple moved from the
Faucher farm to town, where they
built this house at 213 Northeast
Second St. in 1907. The house plans
were drawn by their daughter,
Matilda Faucher, who inherited the
home and later sold it. The home
was later restored by Mr. and Mrs.
Gary Baker.
Left: The First United Methodist
Church of Grand Prairie was the first
church built in Grand Prairie’s town
proper, opening in 1880. This circa
1926 photo shows the congregation in
front of the rebuilt church on the
original Center Street site between
Main and Church Streets.
The History of Grand Prairie ✦ 15

❖
The First Baptist Church of Grand
Prairie at East Main and Northeast
Second streets was built soon after the
nearby Methodist sanctuary opened.
Photo shows the Baptist church
about 1917.
Antoine Faucher, his daughter Agnes and her
husband Alphonce Scheppler arrived from
Illinois the same year as the train. Mr. Faucher
bought 150 acres from David Jordan near
today’s Northwest Seventh Street and Tarrant
Road. He built a home on the hill and raised
cattle, grain, and other crops. About two years
later, Louise Grimm arrived from Alsace
Lorraine, France, for a visit, and stayed to
become Mr. Faucher’s bride.
The Scheppler property adjoined the
Fauchers’ land. Their daughter Dina was born
there in 1879, and their son Ernest was born
four years later in Illinois.
The Schepplers were devout Seventh-Day
Adventists, and in 1883 they returned to their
native France as missionaries. After five years,
the family returned to Grand Prairie and built a
home on the corner of today’s Tarrant and
Stadium roads.
PRAISING THE LORD
As more people moved into the area, the desire
for churches increased. Religious gatherings fed
the soul and provided a time to socialize.
The area’s first house of worship, the Valley
Church near the Jordan-Bowles homestead,
doubled as a school. Until it was built, children
went to school at Eagle Ford, boarding with
families during the week.
The Reverend Andrew Shannon Hayter
organized the Good Hope Cumberland Sabbath
School in the Watson Community in 1870. The
church’s forerunner in Johnson Station started
in 1857; both were predecessors of West Fork
United Presbyterian Church.
The church was built near the cemetery
where Elizabeth Goodwin was buried and
remained there until the mid-1950s, when the
Dallas-Fort Worth Turnpike was built. The
church was in the path of the proposed highway,
so was moved one mile north to 109th Street
and Santerre Drive.
Summer revivals offered a chance to load the
wagon with food and family for a few days of
camping, socializing and praising the Lord.
By 1880 the small town forming around the
Grand Prairie train depot was ripe for a church,
and two were built within months of one another.
The First United Methodist Church was the
first, opening in October 1880 on Center Street
between Main and Church streets. Though the
original building, with its eighteen-foot-tall
steeple, has been replaced several times, the
church is still on its original site.
The nearby First Baptist Church opened soon
after on the corner of East Main and Northeast
Second streets. Both churches began with about
a dozen members.
The Presbyterians began meeting in Grand
Prairie in 1906, but it would take the small
16 ✦ HISTORIC GRAND PRAIRIE

congregation six years to build their first
sanctuary at the corner of Center and Dallas
streets. As membership grew, several sanctuaries
were built in various locations. The church is
now at 310 Southwest Third Street.
ONE FAMILY’ S BEGINNINGS
William A. Liggett, his second wife Ann
Williamson Crutcher, and their children settled
on a farm south of Grand Prairie’s town proper
in the mid-1880s. According to family research,
Mrs. Liggett had a daughter Julia and Mr. Liggett
had 10 children by his first wife, Rachel, who
died in Tennessee in 1880.
Frank Fagan was a small child when the Liggetts
befriended his family. He remembered William was
fairly tall with a well-kept white beard.
“The Liggetts were all a quiet kind of people,
good and well-refined, as was everyone in those
days,” Mr. Fagan said.
William’s grandson Edmon Keith was
very young when his grandfather died in
1897, but remembered riding horseback
with William. Edmon would sit in the buggy
and hold the reins while his grandfather visited
the neighbors.
Several Liggett grandchildren also remembered
their mothers packing food for an
overnight trip to Uncle Lyman Ligget’s place on
Bear Creek near Euless. They attended square
dances there where the children would sit on
the steps and watch.
Another uncle, George Liggett, married Dina
Scheppler in 1897.
The Liggetts were mostly farmers, but some
also owned businesses. Oldest son William G.
Liggett was born in 1861 and returned at 16 to
work in Tennessee, but later came back to Texas.
Although he settled in Dallas, in the early 1900s he
co-owned with his half-uncle Cyrus Clay Houston
the Houston & Liggett Lumber Company in
Grand Prairie, which was run by his brother-inlaw,
Frank Mitchell. William also owned the Grand
Prairie Sand and Gravel Company, run by another
brother-in-law, Bob Keith.
COTTON GINS &
REAL ESTATE DEALS
By the mid-1880s, there was at least one
cotton gin in Grand Prairie. Apparently the crop
grew well here, as noted in this Dallas Morning
News notice on October 4, 1885:
There was brought to Collector Gillespie’s
office yesterday from the plantation of Mr. Rust,
on Grand Prairie, two cotton stalks, one of
which displayed 176 and the other 152 bolls.
There was much competition among the gin
owners. The following year, J. G. Smith’s Grand
❖
One of First Presbyterian Church of
Grand Prairie’s early sanctuaries.
The History of Grand Prairie ✦ 17

Her insanity dates from a trip last year to
Tennessee where she went to visit her father,
whom she had not seen in thirteen years. While
there, she got her feet wet, contracting a cold
under which she swung loose from the moorings
of reason and drifted helplessly into the ocean of
insanity, in which condition she was brought
home. In the court yesterday, she became quite
violent and screamed so that she had to be
removed from the courtroom.
A GOOD PLACE TO LIVE
❖
Above: Berry’s Cotton Gin, one of
several gins in Grand Prairie before
1900. Top row (from left to right):
John Hale, Ona Witherspoon, Jim
Hale, and Charlie Moore. Bottom row
(from left to right): unknown, Harry
Moore, owner H. B. Berry, unknown,
and Walter Witherspoon.
Below: Mr. and Mrs. Garrett Van
Meter Millar at their 50th wedding
anniversary in 1911. The Millars
moved to Grand Prairie from Illinois
in 1895 and built their home at 301
S.W. Fifth St. in 1906. Family records
show the home’s lumber cost
$737.25, paid for with cash and hogs.
The home was torn down in the
early 1970s.
Prairie cotton gin was sabotaged twice. The first
incident, in which the weight on the boiler’s
safety valve had been moved, was discovered
before the engine exploded.
But the gin was destroyed by fire on November
2. The Dallas Morning News reported:
Two men were camping near the gin, and one
of them states that he heard some one(sic)
walking on the upper floor, and also heard a
match ignite. Supposing the intruder to be some
of the gin hands who had come down to start the
machinery, he paid no farther(sic) attention until
the flames had enveloped the whole building.
Grand Prairie real estate transfers increased as
the decade drew to a close, although some deals
recorded in the local papers suggested a lot of
property being flipped in the downtown proper.
In late summer 1889, George Justice sold lot
1, block 22 to E. A. Haskett for $80, who
apparently gave the property to W. M. Haskett,
who then sold it to J.F. Elder for $60. Mr. Elder
turned a nice profit by selling it to Gus A. Spivey
for $225, who then sold the lot to Walter R.
Stovall, also for $225.
All that wheeling and dealing might have left
residents scratching their heads, but probably
one Grand Prairian paid it no heed. Mrs. A.
Howell, a 45-year-old mother of five daughters,
had been adjudged insane in a Dallas courtroom
earlier that year and removed to the “lunatic
asylum” at Terrell. Although the newspaper
account didn’t mention which doctor diagnosed
the woman, readers probably took extra care to
keep their feet dry:
Barely a month into 1890, The Dallas Morning
News reported in its January 31 issue that J. K.
P. Jordan of Grand Prairie had taken sick on his
way home from Dallas and died of la grippe, a
common name for influenza. This must have
been startling news for Mr. Jordan, who was
very much alive.
A week later, the paper issued a retraction,
calling the report a “canard,” and hastening to
add, “La grippe is raging over the entire (Grand
Prairie) community, but no deaths.”
By 1890, a Dallas reporter allowed that
Grand Prairie could boast of a healthy location,
good water and convenience to Dallas, thanks to
18 ✦ HISTORIC GRAND PRAIRIE

trains regularly running to and from the bigger
cities. What the town lacked was a well-built
depot, which consisted of two train cars that
leaked badly.
By year’s end, a spacious building replaced
the cars. The new depot was, according to
the Dallas paper, “a yellow wooden building
with a red roof extending in a gentle slope
much beyond the body of the building; the
platform all around the basement is wide, neat
and strong.”
The same paper took to bragging on Grand
Prairie’s natural advantages for suburban dwellers:
It is situated…upon one of the most beautiful
prairies the eyes ever looked upon, just
undulating enough to drain itself and with sand
in the soil sufficient to keep it from being
muddy. It offers the most beautiful and
picturesque site for suburban homes anywhere
in Dallas county(sic).
But picturesque did not always translate to
idyllic. Grand Prairie had its share of crime,
from petty theft to murder.
William A. Liggett was the victim of perhaps
a hungry thief, who in 1895 stole a $25 saddle
and $40 worth of meat from his smokehouse.
The previous year, W. A. Johnson was
arrested by deputy sheriffs Bolick and Ledbetter
for “assault with attempt to outrage a girl under
12 years old.” Mr. Johnson, who lived five miles
south of town, maintained his innocence.
In 1892, Sid M. McCawley went to a dance
and ended up dead. The social event took place
at Mr. Vanderwort’s home three miles north of
the town proper. Evidence presented at an
inquest overseen by Justice Whittaker in an Oak
Cliff courtroom suggested that T. J. Ross stabbed
Mr. McCawley 16 times after the two became
involved in a “difficulty.”
In addition to dances, residents found
entertainment—and income—in hunting
parties. S. F. Lovell and L. P. Geeo were thrilled
one winter to uncover a den of wolf puppies a
half mile northwest of town.
Cockfights also provided huge sport,
drawing large crowds and pitting one town
against another. Fights were reported in blowby-blow
detail in the Dallas papers, with
promotional stories beforehand, such as this
teaser in The Dallas Morning News on December
14, 1899:
Beginning to-night(sic), this city is going to
be the scene of some battle royals where the loss
of life will be from 50 to 100 percent of the
forces engaged. To-morrow(sic) night at 153
Main street(sic) a cocking main will be fought
between Grand Prairie chickens on the one side
❖
Grand Prairie’s train depot at Center
and Front Street began as two train
cars pushed together. In 1890, the
Texas and Pacific Railroad replaced
the cars with a wooden yellow
building topped by a red roof. The
depot burned in 1909, and was
replaced with this stucco building.
The History of Grand Prairie ✦ 19

and H.M. Bryan’s chickens on the other, each
side to show five.
Entertainment aside, day-to-day survival
often was dictated by the weather, and every
drop of rain was noted.
The decade started with good spring rains,
leaving farmers in high spirits and the crops
doing first class. In April 1890, Grand Prairie
had one-third more land in cultivation than the
previous year, and farmers were in need of more
in-town businesses to furnish their supplies.
Five years later, an April storm brought
high winds and hail to Grand Prairie, severely
damaging crops and blowing R.O. Ford’s
house five feet off its blocks, but leaving it
otherwise unscathed.
Mr. Ford’s luck ran out two years later, when
high winds—some said a tornado—struck in
June 1897. His house and all its belongings
were destroyed, but fortunately the family had
taken refuge in a storm cellar.
At least three other houses were demolished
and many sustained damage, but no injuries
were reported. The Dallas Morning News also
reported that J. L. Wolfenbarger’s warehouse
was demolished, Spivey & Tullos’ drugs and
grocery store was blown from its foundation,
the post office was flooded, and several
homes were struck by lightning and burned.
Lightning also hit the Baptist church, but the
damage was minimal.
Hall Bros., a two-story general merchandise
storehouse, was blown from its foundation and
the south end turned 15 feet to the east, the
story said. Ernest E. Hall was working with his
brothers, Thomas, Charles and G. Byrd, when
the storm hit.
“I wasn’t scared when the twister hit, I wasn’t
scared when that funnel turned the house
around, but after it was over I was a little weak
in the knees,” Mr. Hall remembered in 1951.
The storm apparently wasn’t enough to
scare him out of Grand Prairie. Mr. Hall went
on to operate a downtown grocery store for
more than fifty years.
When not worrying about the weather,
farmers apparently were trying to find enough
workers to get the cotton out of the fields. In
1894, Joe E. Johnston told The Dallas Morning
News that he had just visited Grand Prairie,
where he saw hundreds of acres of “cotton white”
and farmers searching for hands to pick it.
Mr. Johnston said some had ridden into
Dallas and Fort Worth in their search, but
the idle people they found preferred begging
on the streets to an honest day’s work. Mr.
Johnston asked that good citizens not give
handouts when there was plenty of work in
Grand Prairie.
In order to give you some idea about what
wages they can make if willing to work, I will say
that one man whom I talked to told me he had
❖
Mr. and Mrs. David Thomas, owner
of Thomas Grocery Store, built their
five-room home at 402 S. Center
Street in the 1890s. In the early
1900s, their daughter Cora asked that
a central hall and four rooms be
added so she would have a proper
place to entertain male callers. Center
Street was later routed around the
home to avoid a court battle. Tommy
and Judy Wright bought the property
in 1977 and restored the home.
20 ✦ HISTORIC GRAND PRAIRIE

picked 308 pounds yesterday up to 3 p.m.
and would get over 400 pounds by night. That
at the price paid—50 cents and board—would
give him $2 a day clear of his board, and
considering these hard times that seems to be
good wages.
across the river the three patients quarantined in
the tents are convalescing. In the country,
at least, the disease has run its course and is
dying out.
By 1897, the 2000-acre Reed pasture in
Grand Prairie was being divided into 100-acre
farms. It was an attractive offer for people tired
of living in cities like Dallas, which in three
years would be ranked as the nation’s 88th
largest municipality with a population of more
than 42,000.
Polly Sams was glad to be living in Grand
Prairie, according to a letter she wrote to The
Dallas Morning News in 1898:
I am a farmer’s daughter and live in the
country. I like (it) so much better than town. We
once lived in Dallas, but a country Jake in Dallas
is just like a fish out of water…I’d rather be a
little freckle-faced gal with hay seed in my
hair—‘free as the air of the mountains and
monarch of all I survey.’
Fresh air wasn’t the only good thing going for
Grand Prairie. Although the population was
nearing one thousand, residents were spread out
enough to keep smallpox at bay.
Smallpox vaccinations were first used in the
United States around 1800, but most people
were leery of being inoculated and the disease
remained a viable threat well into the 1940s.
In March 1899 more than forty Dallas
County residents came down with the disease.
Many were quarantined in tents or “pesthouses,”
and smallpox bulletins were published every
few days.
The disease was less rampant away from the
city, and James Smith contracted the only
reported case in Grand Prairie that year. County
physician Thomas B. Fisher made frequent trips
to outlying areas to check on patients, then
reported his findings to the Dallas papers, such
as this one filed on March 3:
I visited the patients at Grand Prairie,
Richardson and West Dallas to-day.(sic) The
Grand Prairie patient is doing firstrate(sic). I
found Mr. Stratton in Richardson sitting up and
A NEW CENTURY
At the turn of the century, cotton was king in
Grand Prairie but not all of North Texas was so
lucky. M. Green visited relatives in Collin
County the summer of 1904 and, upon his
return home to Grand Prairie, reported the
county north of Dallas “is absolutely without a
cotton crop.”
Grand Prairie was experiencing one of
its best crops in years, and Bill King had about
a dozen hands picking cotton in his fields
by late August. Three weeks later, the local
paper reported, “Ona Witherspoon has a field
of cotton that beats anything we’ve ever
seen. Friends claim he will get five bales from
four acres.”
But an early September storm damaged much
of the crop in nearby Bear Creek. Coupled with
a previous dry spell and boll weevil problems,
the crop was reduced to about one-third of a
bale per acre.
Boll weevils were a constant concern, and
any ray of hope for beating the vermin was
dutifully reported. When the Arlington Journal
noted that W.H. Hill brought two fine stalks of
cotton to that town’s public scales, Grand
Prairie’s paper reprinted the information:
❖
Local builder Tom Hall built this
home about 1897, and seven years
later it was sold to L. W. Means, a
local merchant. John and Ruth
Trimble bought the home in the early
1940s, and Michael and Ann Martin
purchased it from the Trimbles forty
years later. The home features twelvefoot
ceilings and hardwood floors.
The History of Grand Prairie ✦ 21

One was King’s early (small boll) and the
other Rowden’s big boll early. Both were planted
May 14 on creek bottomland in the edge of the
timber, and so far are entirely free of pests and
have never stopped making cotton.
❖
Right: Grand Prairie’s burgeoning
business community in the early
1900s included a number of banks.
Some of the financial institutions
doing business in the first decade were
the First State Bank, Citizen’s Bank
and the Bank of Grand Prairie.
Below: Ice cream socials, oyster
suppers and watermelon picnics were
frequent social events in the early
1900s. More than 100 years later,
watermelon is still enjoyed by many
Grand Prairie residents, including
these two girls celebrating the 4th of
July at Friendship Park.
Arlington’s gins were a source of agitation for
the owners of Grand Prairie’s gins. Some area
farmers preferred to take their cotton to
Arlington. Whatever the reasons—better prices
perhaps or just more convenient—local ginners
did not like losing business to Arlington.
Grand Prairie had several cotton gins by
1900, including one built by Stephen Phillip
Lively soon after his arrival around 1894. In
1899, the North Texas Construction Company
paid F. A. Blain $7,000 for seven downtown lots
to build another gin.
By late October 1904, the North Texas
Construction Company gin had produced 1,571
bales. Farmers Gin Company did slightly less with
1,550, for a total of 3,121 bales. By February 1905,
bales were selling for $7.10 to $7.50 a pound.
Cotton wasn’t Grand Prairie’s only business.
The town boasted at least five dry goods and
grocery stores, two blacksmiths, B.G. Maxwell’s
barbershop and laundry, two drug stores, a post
office, lumberyards, hardware stores and a
carriage maker.
Dawdy & Melton’s short order stand offered
cold drinks, meats and barbecue. J. N. Swadley
was proprietor of the Grand Prairie Hotel, and
R. B. Harston ran Grand Prairie Roller Mills,
which specialized in White Dove flour.
Many of the town’s entrepreneurs combined
businesses. Hardware, implements and
windmill supplies could be purchased at D. M.
Thomas Groceries; R. T. Merriman’s grocery
store had a feed and wagon yard; Hall’s
grocery store served double duty as the
Interurban ticket office; and Collins & McNatt
sold groceries and “gent’s furnishings and
undertaker goods.”
The Bank of Grand Prairie opened September
10, 1904, with a capital stock of $20,000 and D.
E. Waggoner as president. The bank was
equipped with a “vault door with a Mosler screw
door safe and triple Yale time lock, and a vault
door of same make, best in U.S. insured against
burglary or daylight hold up.”
One of Grand Prairie’s most industrious
businessmen was J.E. Payne, a physician and
surgeon specializing in women’s and children’s
medicine. Dr. Payne also owned the newspaper
and a drug store, which housed the Grand
Prairie Telephone Company offering phone
service for $1 a month.
School supplies, stationery, paints and oils
could be purchased at Dr. Payne’s pharmacy,
along with the latest elixirs and cure-alls. Dr.
Payne was a frequent advertiser in his own
newspaper, hawking Herbine for women with
depression; Eucaline to cure chills, fevers and all
22 ✦ HISTORIC GRAND PRAIRIE

diseases arising from a malarial condition; and
Kodol Dyspepsia Cure, which he claimed “digests
what you eat, and cures indigestion, palpitation
of the heart and stomach troubles generally.”
When they weren’t worrying about boll
weevils, weather and warts, Grand Prairians
were entertaining themselves with ice cream and
watermelon suppers. Revivals were popular
during summer months, and “going visiting”
was another favorite pastime.
In 1900, the Eastman Kodak Company
introduced the Brownie camera; it sold for $1,
film for 15 cents a roll. Picture-taking quickly
became commonplace and the manufacturer’s
name became a verb, as noted in The Grand
Prairie Hustler:
The following young ladies enjoyed an all day
outing at Cottonwood Farm one day last week as
guests of Miss Margaret Hayes: Misses Lucille
Wolfenbarger, Nora Lively, Lula Spencer, Ella
Mae Jordan, Edna Turner and Bertie Spencer.
Kodaking as well as other sports were freely
indulged and if the camera did not fail to work
some very choice specimens will be the result.
Some gatherings were more work than play,
such as the annual cemetery cleanings in midsummer
between planting and harvesting. The
men and boys gathered early in the morning to
hoe out the weeds and clean their families’
gravesites. The women arrived late morning
with picnic baskets in hand, and after lunch
worked alongside the men.
On Saturday before the first Monday of each
month, farmers made their way into town for
Trader’s Day. They brought with them fruits and
vegetables, eggs and honey, and anything that
could be used for bartering.
Downtown businesses flourished on Trader’s
Day, but despite the many merchants, some
things still were unavailable in Grand Prairie.
The town lacked a brickyard, wood and coal
yard, general feed house and large furniture
store, and anyone needing an attorney had to go
to Dallas.
The introduction of the Interurban trolley car
service in July 1902 made it easier and faster for
residents to make the trip to Dallas, as well as
Arlington, Handley and Fort Worth to the west.
The Northern Texas Traction Company opened
the service between Dallas and Fort Worth with
a single track and numerous sidings.
Aboard the first train through Grand Prairie
was a large group of the town’s children.
Stephen P. Lively made sure his children and
many of their friends were part of that historic
first run.
Forty Interurban cars a day made the 95-
minute run between Dallas and Fort Worth, and
the rate of two cents a mile made the trip
affordable. The railroad reduced its rate to
match, but the Interurban proved so popular,
additional runs were added in 1908.
Over the years, accidents along the track
were common. The electric cars were prone to
startling horses, and wagons and motorcars
were struck on a regular basis.
❖
G. Cline & Son’s Blacksmith Shop on
Main Street in 1908.
The History of Grand Prairie ✦ 23

❖
Interurban cars running west through
Grand Prairie; the tracks were on
what is now Jefferson Boulevard. The
Interurban began daily service
between Dallas and Fort Worth in
1902, making it easier for Grand
Prairie residents to shop in the
larger cities.
One of the first fatalities occurred in Grand
Prairie, barely a month after the Interurban
began running. Four men working on the track
were hit by an eastbound car, the sound of its
approach apparently drowned out by the
passenger train on the track next to the
Interurban rail. One man was killed, another
critically injured and the remaining two
slightly hurt.
O.C. Tate had just disembarked from an
Interurban car in December 1908 after working
in Dallas when his foot caught in a cattle guard
a half-mile from his Grand Prairie home.
“The man was evidently on his way home, for
he carried a can of syrup, a pair of shoes for his
baby and a little sack of sugar,” Deputy Sheriff
Hayden Trigg later said of Mr. Tate’s death.
In 1915, a wagon carrying a family of six and
driven by one of the younger boys was hit
broadside west of Grand Prairie on the county
line. The father, T.G. Brown, died instantly and
his wife was critically injured. Their four
children, ages 4 to 8, received minor injuries.
But the fast commuter service was a
convenience for shoppers and workers, and
made law enforcement easier, as evidenced by
this item in The Grand Prairie Texan on March
12, 1909:
had been stolen in Dallas and Deputy Sheriff
Hayden Trigg got on the Interurban and
overtook him at Handley. The horse and boy
were carried back to Dallas.
Grand Prairie business leaders wanted
residents to shop at home, and encouraged new
merchants to locate there. Some felt those efforts
were hampered because downtown was
hemmed in by farms.
But that was changing. J.J. Willingham, who
owned 200 acres adjoining the town, began
“laying it off into town lots,” and the nearby
Hale and Thomas farms also were divided and
sold.
In 1904, The Grand Prairie Hustler hailed the
newly available land as a sign the town was
about to take off:
Heretofore available town property has been
so scarce and conforming to the natural law of
supply and demand, it has been almost
impossible to get a business ... or even a
residence lot, but the time is ripe for us to come
to the front, and if you want to live in town just
move up close and the town will build to you,
but if you don’t, just stand off and watch us
grow.
A strange young man riding a grey horse
passed through Grand Prairie Sunday afternoon
about 3:30 o’clock, going towards Fort Worth.
Soon came a telephone message that the horse
Where there are people, there must be water.
Grand Prairie had several springs, but most
people relied on well water. Intrepid residents
made a business of digging wells for
24 ✦ HISTORIC GRAND PRAIRIE

newcomers, and the local paper made note of it
in 1908:
Jacob Swadley this week stepped aboard his
“automowelldrill” gave the whistle a shrill toot,
toot! and speeded out to the Harwood ranch
south of town. He says he will procure artesian
water for Mr. John Cox, who has recently
purchased that property.
As Grand Prairie’s population surged toward
1,000, the need for a public water system
increased. So too did the need for a more
orderly government, and near the end of the
new century’s first decade, a movement arose
calling for the incorporation of Grand Prairie.
It was a forward-thinking idea, but one not
everyone embraced.
A TOWN ORGANIZES
The year 1909 proved to be a watershed one
for Grand Prairie, which was slowly progressing
from a loosely knit farming community whose
inhabitants settled legal disputes in Dallas, to an
organized town.
The first step came in January, when Dallas
County began holding Justice Court in Grand
Prairie the second Saturday of each month.
Until then, residents traveled to Oak Cliff for
court appearances.
Later that month, H. J. Lucas installed a
cement sidewalk in front of his home, setting off
a “sidewalk campaign” to fight the everpresent
mud. The Commercial Club,
predecessor to the Chamber of Commerce,
passed a resolution commending Mr. Lucas, and
the year-old Grand Prairie Texan published
kudos each time a resident added a cement or
gravel walk.
The biggest change for Grand Prairie came
on March 20, 1909, when residents voted for
incorporation. The election’s outcome was not a
sure thing since the same measure was voted
down the previous year, 51 to 57.
This time the measure passed 69 to 41.
Excited townspeople met three days later and
nominated candidates for the new city
government, including Stephen P. Lively for
mayor. They called for an election on April 6,
but County Judge John M. Young overruled the
decision, noting that an election required a 30-
day notice. The town’s first official election was
moved to April 28.
Not to be outdone, a second group of townspeople
put together an opposing ticket, nominating
J. L. Atwater as their mayoral candidate.
A total of 107 votes were cast in the election,
with Mr. Lively beating out Mr. Atwater by 23
votes. E. L. Raines became the town’s first
marshal, and the aldermen were J. A. Moore, E.
M. Henley, T. L. Badgett, R. E. Means, and
John Herr.
They wasted no time enacting Grand Prairie’s
first ten ordinances on June 9. The laws defined
the government’s duties, prohibited transporting
❖
J. C. “Jake” Swadley Sr., far right, in
the garage at Main and Second streets
that doubled as the fire station, ca.
1929. Mr. Swadley ran an auto repair
business, was the city’s first fire chief
and, in 1908, owned an
“automowelldrill” used to dig artesian
water wells for residents.
The History of Grand Prairie ✦ 25

❖
Above: Looking east down Grand
Prairie’s Main Street in 1909. The
first automobile owned by a resident
wouldn’t arrive until the following
year, when Dr. H.V. Copeland bought
a Hupmobile.
Below: Sarah “Sadie” Millar and her
sister, Ruth, in 1911. Sadie was the
first teacher at Florence Hill school in
1899, and taught at Grand Prairie’s
school beginning in 1902. Ruth was
an insurance agent, and their sister
Bertha married Ernest Hall who was
in the grocery business. The sisters
were the daughters of Mr. and Mrs.
Garrett Van Meter Millar.
someone with a contagious disease into town
without notifying the authorities, forbade ball
playing in a public street, made it illegal to
shoot firearms in town, and regulated privies
and public houses.
The ordinances also set speed limits, forbade
the sale of alcohol to minors and set punishment
for the cruel treatment of animals.
FIRE
& WATER
What the town really needed, but would not
get until 1917, was an organized fire department.
Bucket brigades were used to fight most fires,
including a 1903 blaze that began when the
head of a struck match flew off and landed on
an oil tank. It destroyed J. C. Conover’s
storehouse occupied by J. C. Simmons’ grocery
store, A. G. Rogg’s saddle and harness shop, and
Dr. Gillespie’s private office.
Mr. Rogg managed to save most of his tools
and goods, but the doctor’s medical tools, books,
insurance policies and accounts were destroyed,
as were the groceries. A strong north wind
threatened to ignite more businesses to the south:
The bucket brigade worked hard and fought the
fire, and the Barns building was saved.
A bucket brigade was of little use early on
March 26, 1909, when a fire started in the train
depot. Fueled by a strong wind, it destroyed an
entire business block and was not brought
under control until almost noon when Arlington
and Dallas firefighters came to the town’s aid.
…if it had not been for a large crowd in town,
who gave a helping hand to fight the flames, the
Barns building, which was only sixty feet to the
south; the Texas and Pacific depot and several
buildings south of the depot would have burned.
26 ✦ HISTORIC GRAND PRAIRIE

There was initial confusion over how to fight
the blaze, according to a March 27 The Dallas
Morning News article. It said there was no point
in calling for a Dallas fire engine since there
were no fire hydrants.
Later, the idea of securing tank cars from the
railroad was advanced, but it was then too late to
telegraph for help since the telephone wires had
gone down and the instrument in the depot had
been destroyed. Finally, S. A. Fishburn and
Hayden Trigg went to Dallas on an Interurban car.
A special train, consisting of four tank cars,
two flatcars, an engine, a hose wagon and 12
firefighters, was dispatched from Dallas, and the
fire finally was extinguished.
It caused $25,000 in damages, destroying
two restaurants, Collins & Collins Hardware
and a lumberyard. Dr. Payne’s drugstore, the
First State Bank and the Grand Prairie Hotel also
sustained damage.
“The blaze was the most disastrous in our
history,” The Grand Prairie Texan reported.
When the rebuilding of the Conover block
commenced a month later, the wooden
structures were replaced with five one-story
brick buildings facing Main Street.
A mid-morning fire on September 23, 1909,
started in the Owens lumberyard and spread to
adjacent buildings. Along with the Owens
business, the blaze destroyed the Williams
restaurant, Bradshaw livery, the Hardman feed
store and an adjacent lumberyard.
A strong northeasterly wind carried sparks
from the fire across the road, igniting the Grand
Prairie Hotel. It burned to the ground.
The many fires inspired members of the
Commercial Club to call for a community water
system. Debate raged over the type of system
needed, as well as how it would be paid for and
who would maintain it.
In January 1911, the city’s aldermen
approved a water tank, well and pumping
station plan, which were estimated to cost $750
to $1,500. The 250-foot well was dug near Main
and Collins streets next to the railroad tracks,
and an overhead tank and pump was installed
for use by the railroad.
A glove factory was chartered in October,
although within a year it had relocated to a house.
The Dallas Cracker and Biscuit Company
began testing its facilities in November 1909 after
a year of construction. The company promised to
employ 50 to 100 people and produce 125 barrels
of crackers daily. Within a year it had declared
bankruptcy and the facility was sold at auction.
❖
Above: Grand Prairie firefighters
practice pumping operations next to
the lumberyard at Main and Second
streets in 1924. Several devastating
fires destroyed parts of downtown in
the early part of the century, leading
to a better organized and equipped
fire department.
Below: Brothers Jake and Bill Swadley
spent two months in 1939 building
this fire engine from various vehicles,
including a 1939 Ford truck for the
front. It was painted by Thomas
Powers with paint from American
Body & Equipment Co. Grand
Prairie’s fire department was allvolunteer
until 1945.
The History of Grand Prairie ✦ 27

❖
Above: Students and faculty at the
Florence Hill School, ca. 1905. The
Florence Hill enclave south of Grand
Prairie, near today’s Polo and
Matthew roads, was a thriving
community at the turn of the century.
Below: Workers at the Spikes Brothers
Brooms and Dusters factory holding
some of the dusters, ca. 1920s.
In 1909, the Florence Hill community, near
today’s Polo and Matthew roads south of Interstate
20, joined the modern communication wave by
organizing a telephone company. Early operators
included Mamie Rust, Lottie Witherspoon and
Addie Conover.
DALWORTH
PARK
Just west of Grand Prairie, Dalworth Park was
emerging from the surrounding farmland. The
new town was the brainchild of Colonel Frank P.
Holland, publisher of Farm and Ranch magazine in
Dallas, who modeled it after a similar community
near St. Louis, Missouri.
Potential homebuyers were enticed to
Dalworth Park with promises of “such modern
conveniences as water, natural gas, concrete
sidewalks, granitoid streets and telephones,” as
well as a lower cost of living and less congestion
than Dallas and Fort Worth.
The community got a big boost in 1912,
when the Spikes Brothers Brooms and Dusters
factory moved there from Dallas. The factory
was closed on Saturday because George W.,
M. L., and Paul Spikes were Seventh-Day
Adventists, although it sometimes ran on
Sundays if a large order needed filling.
Most of the factory’s employees also were
Seventh-Day Adventists who moved with the
business from Dallas. They bought lots and built
homes in the newly formed community. The
population was about four hundred when
Dalworth Park incorporated in 1913.
George Spikes served eight years as the town’s
first mayor, and was succeeded by his brother,
M. L. Spikes, who also served eight years.
Besides the broom factory, which used locally
grown broom corn, the community was home to
Dalworth Inn, advertised as the first high-class
automobile inn in Texas.
The Dalworth Business College at 1501
Houston Street featured apartments on the
second floor. The building later housed a dinnernight
club called The Rainbow Gardens, and in
the late 1970s became home to the Grand Prairie
Community Theater. The building remains at its
original location.
SOUTH
DALWORTH
Not long after families began moving into
Dalworth Park, another community was
28 ✦ HISTORIC GRAND PRAIRIE

established just south of the railroad and
Interurban tracks. The area originally named South
Dalworth was home to the African-Americans who
worked for Dalworth Park residents.
Pierce Hill and his wife Romie moved to South
Dalworth from Dallas in 1915 with their seven
children. Daughter Allene Hill Jones later remembered
there were two families when they arrived:
Mrs. Deadly Garetfery and her son Walter, and Mr.
and Mrs. Henry Littlejohn and their daughter.
“There were no church, no school, no nothing,”
Mrs. Jones wrote. “We walked most of the time.
For a period of time we had school in our house.
Mrs. Deadly Garetfery was the teacher.”
Romie Hill cleaned houses and Pierce Hill
picked cotton or worked the railroad. Family
members remembered the area was a large,
open prairie.
As more families moved in, Mrs. Hill and
Mrs. Harrison sold fish and ice cream to raise
money for a school. According to Allene, about
1921 her mother, who worked for the S. A.
McHenry family, asked McHenry about a lot for
the school. He told her to build it on the corner
of Nineteenth and Beaumont streets.
David Daniels became principal of the
Dalworth School in 1939. He later said the
community at that time had 15 houses and two
churches, and the school had 21 students and
two adults attending special classes.
“A private water system served four houses.
All others depended on shallow wells,” he wrote.
Students attended grades one through eight at
the school, but only the most determined
Dalworth students received additional education.
Their only choice for higher grades was Booker T.
Washington High School in Dallas.
“We couldn’t go to Grand Prairie High School,”
Delmas Morton told the Arlington Morning News
in 2000. “Most students just dropped out at
that point.”
Those choosing to continue their education
could ride the Texas Motor Coach to high school
each day. The daily bus ride cost $3 a week
in 1940.
The Dalworth community did not get its
own high school until 1954. The school system
was integrated in 1966 and Dalworth High
School eventually was phased out.
❖
Above: The Seventh-Day Adventist
school was built in 1912 in Dalworth
Park. The building at Northwest
Sixteenth and Fort Worth streets
now houses Grand Prairie Rebekah
Lodge #63.
Below: The Interurban station at
Dalworth Park, c. 1915.
The History of Grand Prairie ✦ 29

THE DOCTOR &
THE HUPMOBILE
Grand Prairie’s first car, a two-passenger
Hupmobile, bounced into town in 1910 with
Dr. Horace V. Copeland at the wheel.
Dr. Copeland attended Barnes Medical
College in St. Louis from 1897 to 1898. After
graduating from Fort Worth University in 1901,
Dr. Copeland practiced in Euless for a year
before moving to Grand Prairie, where he hung
his shingle in S. S. Tullos’ drug store.
In October 1908, Dr. Copeland and his wife,
Maude, bought a home on two lots from B. P.
Hall at 125 Southwest Dallas Street. Dr.
Copeland lived there more than sixty years, but
eighteen months later.
Dr. Copeland was one of three Grand Prairie
doctors in the early 1900s, the others being J.E.
Payne and William E. Gillespie. Unpaved roads
and patients scattered across fields and prairies
proved a challenge for the doctors.
“We traveled to our patients by horseback,
horse-drawn vehicle, by interurban, railroad
handcar, but eventually by automobile,” Dr.
Copeland told a Grand Prairie News reporter
in 1962.
The car he bought in 1910 could only be
used in good weather, and a lack of gas stations
in Grand Prairie presented another challenge.
“I had to go to Dallas to fill the car’s gas tank,”
Dr. Copeland said. “I always had to fight the
traffic, too.”
Although he had an office, the doctor made
many house calls. It wasn’t unusual for him to
take the Interurban part of the way, then walk
several miles to reach a patient.
Patients also came to Dr. Copeland’s house,
knocking on the back door for admittance into the
back room, which doubled as his son’s bedroom.
Medical facilities were fairly basic, with
autopsies performed at the undertaker’s place or
graveside, as Bill Herndon discovered in April
1909. While helping his dog flush a rabbit out
of tall grass in Bowles Cemetery, Herndon’s foot
was badly cut when he stepped on a knife left
“by one of the physicians who assisted in
holding the autopsy of the remains of” a local
man, The Grand Prairie Texan reported.
One of Dr. Copeland’s worst cases was that of
a small child whose foot was nearly severed by
an accidental gun shot blast. He performed an
amputation by the light of a gas lamp that had a
wick but no chimney.
Dr. Copeland was forty-two when he married
Frances Watson of Arlington in 1917, the same
year he was appointed medical examiner to the
exemption board for the draft. He also helped
raise funds for the Red Cross during World War
I, but his real work would come in 1918 as
returning soldiers brought home Spanish
influenza. The flu pandemic of 1918 killed more
than 600,000 Americans and more than 20
million people worldwide. By October, more
than 106,000 Texans had contracted the disease
and 2,100 had died.
❖
Automobiles were a common sight
in Grand Prairie by 1915, but
horses could better navigate the
muddy roads. Jim Duvall, a farmer,
is the man in the middle; the others
are unidentified.
30 ✦ HISTORIC GRAND PRAIRIE

In later years, Dr. Copeland would call the flu
pandemic the worst period of his practice. But
when it was over, he had lost only three patients.
LET’ S ALL GO TO
THE MOVIES
As soldiers continued to return home, the
Grand Prairie Texan reminded readers that
victory comes with a price. A full-page ad for
the Victory Loan Drive in 1919 read, “We went
in to win and to win quickly. We won. Now we
have got to pay our bills.”
As if to reiterate the point, The Price of Peace
played at the newly opened Airdrome theater for
one night only. Admittance was free to the film
billed as “the greatest motion picture ever
produced.” Regular prices at the open-air movie
house were 10 and 20 cents, with a Wurlitzer
band piano providing accompanying music.
The Lyric Theatre, newly moved into the
former Security Cash Store building, was open
four nights a week. The first movie, shown on May
6, 1919, was The Iron Cast, a “fine four-reel show.”
Even the school’s Parent-Teacher Association
jumped on the movie bandwagon, spending
almost $400 for a projector and showing
movies on weekends in an attempt to raise funds
for school improvements. The venture limped
along with limited patronage for several years,
unable to compete with other theaters in town.
When proprietor B. B. Bowen remodeled the
Lyric theater in 1922—elevating the floor,
making the building longer, installing new
opera chairs, and remodeling and painting the
front entrance—patrons flocked to the reopening.
Every seat at the Lyric was filled for the
eight-reel feature, Dawn.
The PTA, meanwhile, tried to lure customers
by assuring them their movies were as good as
those showing in Dallas.
Losing business to the city to the east was a
real concern for all Grand Prairie businesses, as
improving roads made it easier to travel
elsewhere. The West Dallas Pike had provided a
route eastward for years, although by 1911 it
was sorely in need of repairs.
❖
Above: Dallas County’s 1917 Draft
Exemption Board, left to right,
Gregory Hatcher, legal; Dr. Horace V.
Copeland, medical examiner;
Walter Lambert, secretary; and
John Reisen, president.
Below: Downtown Grand Prairie,
looking southeast, ca. 1920s. The
train depot at Center and Front
streets is at the top, slightly right
of center.
The History of Grand Prairie ✦ 31

❖
Above: The newly completed Dallas-
Fort Worth Pike in 1921 as it entered
town from the west. The American
Body Company is on the right.
Opposite, top: Artist’s conception of
the Little Motor Kar Company’s
Texmobile, 1920.
Opposite, middle: The Little Motor
Kar Company’s truck is weight-tested
for 3,508 pounds, c. the 1920s.
Opposite, bottom: Hancock Drug
Store at 103 West Main Street, c. the
mid-1920s. Owner Warren A.
Hancock is second from left.
Relief came a few years later when a new pike
was cut between Dallas and Fort Worth.
Construction on the twenty-foot-wide concrete
roadway began in 1919. The yearlong project was
said to cost $39,600 per mile, but one area
presented an engineering conundrum, according
to a July 22, 1921, item in the Grand Prairie Texan:
The D-FW pike has been completed in Dallas
County from the city limits to the county line, a
distance of 12 miles, with the exception of about
4,000 feet in the Mountain Creek bottom. This
stretch of road through the bottom has been
graveled and graded, but will have to wait for the
roadbed to settle, Commissioner G. W. Ledbetter
said, probably until fall or later.
The new pike was better known as the
Bankhead Highway and stretched from
Savannah, Georgia, to San Diego, California.
When the numbering system was introduced in
1926, it became U.S. Highway 80.
THE LITTLE MOTOR
KAR COMPANY
Visitors to the 1919 State Fair of Texas who
stopped by booth 99 in the Automobile
Building were introduced to the Little Motor Kar
Company. Most likely they also were treated to
a sales pitch touting the financial benefits of
investing in Grand Prairie’s newest business.
The company was headquartered in Wichita
Falls, but in July paid $30,000 for 80 acres near
Fowler’s stop on the Interurban line. The
company’s officers—William S. Livezey, president;
R. L. McCoy, vice president; and secretary George
Stricker—vowed to invest $1 million in
production of light pleasure cars, tractors and
trailers. The plant would employ 3,000 men
working day and night shifts, they said.
In early March 1920, sales manager J. H. Judge
claimed to have orders for 100,000 four-cylinder
Texmobiles. Later that month, Grand Prairie Texan
editor Fred R. Krieger reported production had
begun on a “sport kar” and a “touring kar.”
“In taking a ride in the sport kar, I found the
engine to be exceptionally powerful,” he wrote.
“The touring kar seems to be an easier riding car
than the sport kar.”
Unbeknownst to Krieger and the Little Motor
Kar Company’s more than thirty thousand
stockholders, the company was on the verge of
collapse. The previous November, Livezey
withdrew $50,000 from the company’s account
on his way to Havre de Grace, Maryland, where a
second plant was planned but never materialized.
A few days after Krieger test-drove what was
apparently the only car built under Livezey’s
leadership, the company officers were arrested and
charged with using the mail for fraud. Livezey also
was charged with embezzlement.
In July, the stockholders elected Dr. J. E.
Payne of Grand Prairie and Dallasite W. E. Jewer
as the company’s new officers. They also voted
to cancel any stock issued to the former officers
that had not been paid for with cash.
At Livezey’s February 1921 trial in Dallas’
Federal District Court, sales manager Judge
testified that although much money from stock
32 ✦ HISTORIC GRAND PRAIRIE

sales was received, records of those transactions
were nonexistent. Further testimony revealed
that the officers failed to record $226,588 in
stock purchases, and at the time the company
went into receivership there was $70,843 left in
its account.
The most sensational testimony came
from Nellie Preston, who was nineteen during the
trial. The Aberdeen, Maryland, resident reported
that Livezey lavished her and her family with
gifts, including several cars, diamond jewelry, fur
coats, silk “underfinery,” and a saddle horse.
Livezey was found guilty of misuse of the U.S.
mail and sentenced to five years in prison.
Meanwhile, the Little Motor Kar Company
resumed operation in November 1922,
producing a “complete light truck.” But the
endeavor proved unsuccessful, and the
company filed for bankruptcy in 1928.
AN UNFORTUNATE
CHOICE OF STORAGE
The 1920 Census listed three-quarters of
Dallas County residents as farmers with an
average 84.2 acres of land. The population was
210,551, with 1,263 of those people living in
Grand Prairie.
That same year, the town’s water rate
increased from $1 a month to $1.50. Mayor T.
G. Collins attributed the increase to the city’s
power bill from the Northern Texas Traction
Company, which rose from $159 in September
to $289 the following month.
The mayor noted that the city planned to buy
an oil engine that would drop the power bill to
$50, at which time the water rate also would
drop. Until then, residents needed to pay the
extra so the city could pay its bill.
Meanwhile, the three-year-old fire department
was showing off its new purchase. The
Grand Prairie Texan editor made a note of it:
Our town has assumed the air of a real city,
with its new auto fire engine. Monday evening
the thing came by the office hooting at a
lightning speed, and would have made the
Dallas firemen take notice.
The engine was stored at the Lone Star
Garage along with several dozen other vehicles.
The History of Grand Prairie ✦ 33

❖
Above: Looking west on Main Street
about 1928. Downtown street lamps
were installed in 1924, and Millar
Drug Store, which opened in 1927, is
on the right side of the street.
Below: Bill Graham, standing left,
opened his first Grand Prairie
barbershop in 1918. The shop moved
several times along Main Street and
Mr. Graham cut hair into the 1960s.
In the photo, an unidentified barber
gives Luke Bostick a haircut.
It was an unfortunate storage choice because the
garage caught fire on November 26, 1920. The
local paper reported the $45,000 loss:
The Interurban car stopped to give alarm.
Many people quickly rushed to the building but
were wholly handicapped because the fire truck
and hose were in the building that was burning.
The Dallas Fire Department arrived thirty
minutes later, but the building and vehicles
were a total loss.
The fire engine was replaced within a month,
and two years later the fire department had a
motorized fire truck, 12 volunteer firefighters,
1,400 feet of hose, and “an almost unfailing
supply of water.”
But they were of little use during the winter
of 1923, when temperatures dipped to a chilling
sixteen degrees and a feed store and warehouse
caught fire. The volunteer crew connected their
hose to the closest hydrant 500 feet away. It was
far enough away to chill the water and turn it to
ice as it hit the building.
One weary firefighter later noted, “We saved
the lot that it was on anyway.”
DOING A BOOMING BUSINESS
As the town’s population increased, the
business community also grew. The Grand
Prairie Drug Store opened in 1919 with a
soda fountain sporting a fourteen-foot solid
marble counter.
Residents could ask the phone operator to
connect to the Grand Prairie Ice & Fuel
Company at number twenty-eight for prompt
delivery of ice and firewood. The Texas Cracker
& Biscuit Company sold broken cakes and
crackers for two cents a pound, and corn and
barley flour for a penny more.
A haircut could be had at the barber shop
owned by William H. Graham. “Bill” Graham
opened the shop in 1918 while he and wife,
Izora, and two children lived in Arlington, but
the family moved to Grand Prairie the next year.
The business expanded in 1922 when Izora
Graham opened her beauty shop. The Graham
Barber and Beauty Shop moved several times
along Main Street, remaining in business until
the Grahams retired in the mid-1960s.
The American Body Company in the
former Chase Furniture Company building
manufactured truck bodies for shipment
throughout Texas and surrounding states. The
Continental Tire and Rubber Company bought a
tract of land near Dalworth and in 1921 set up
shop in the former Dalworth Company office.
34 ✦ HISTORIC GRAND PRAIRIE

The Grand Prairie Gravel Company north of
town was shipping out $10,000 worth of gravel
monthly. Some was bound for street paving in
Dallas, Waxahachie and Paris.
Other businesses included the American
Mercantile Company owned by John B.
Christensen; the Grand Prairie Automobile
Company, which offered auto repairs, painting
and upholstery; the Grand Prairie Mattress
Factory, which produced new bedding and
refurbished used ones; and the Home Bakery,
which offered freshly baked pies, cakes
and breads.
In 1920 farmers could pick up a brand new
Ford tractor at the Anderson Motor Company
for $852.10. The dealer also offered lesserpriced
automobiles, including a Chassis for
$441.01, a Roadster with starter for $556.28
and a plain Roadster for $483.39. Only the
Sedan at $899.89 cost more than a new tractor.
Of course, the cars needed fuel, and for that
drivers could head two miles east of town to the
State Refining Association’s refinery. The
complete service station offered “high-grade
gasoline, the best lubricating oils, Gillette and
Erie tires,” and the ever-popular ladies rest room.
❖
Left: Izora Graham, fourth from left,
opened her first beauty shop in 1922,
sharing space with her husband’s
barbershop. In the chair is Evelyn
Powers Sivley. Izora’s daughter, Irene
Paxton, is second from left, and
Irene’s daughter, Billie Mack Toomer,
is the little girl in this photo taken
around 1948.
Bottom, left: Evelyn Powers Sively
and her one-year-old son, Billy
Powers, in front of Graham’s Barber
and Beauty Shop in 1926. Movie
posters at the Texas Theater can be
seen on the right.
Below: Black’s Gulf State Service
Company on East Main Street, c.
the 1920s.
The History of Grand Prairie ✦ 35

❖
Above: Garage Gasoline & Oils, c.
the 1920s.
Below: Downtown Grand Prairie,
about the time G. H. Turner and his
wife Lena moved to the city in 1914.
Nine years later, he would begin
the longest mayoral span in the
city’s history.
THE TURNER ERA
G. H. Turner also installed a ladies rest room
at his Hardware and Furniture Company. From
the store he and his brother, L. O. Turner, also
ran an ambulance and undertaker service.
When Harry Turner and his wife Lena arrived
in Grand Prairie in 1914, he already was a
successful realtor and railroad auditor. In 1923,
after serving two years on the school board,
Harry Turner was elected Grand Prairie’s mayor,
receiving 205 out of 327 votes. Until his
election, none of Grand Prairie’s mayors had
served more than one two-year term. Harry
Turner remained in office until 1949, except for
the term from 1935 to 1937 when he bowed out
for medical reasons.
Under his guidance, the city saw road
improvements, weathered the Depression and
experienced an unprecedented population boom,
thanks to World War II and Grand Prairie’s
burgeoning aviation industry.
Harry Turner also was a bank president, an
insurance agent, a housing and retail developer,
and served on dozens of corporations in Dallas
and Grand Prairie.
More than half the city’s population turned
out on September 9, 1923, to watch Mayor
Turner switch on Main Street’s “white way
lighting system.” Eighteen street lamps were
installed: sixteen along two blocks of Main Street
and two on Center Street between Main and
Front streets. The cost of the $4,000 system was
split by the downtown merchants and the city.
In the 1920s, Mayor Turner also fought to keep
sewage from being dumped into the Trinity River,
and threatened to fight a county bond package if
commissioners went ahead with plans to build
gravel instead of concrete roads west of Dallas.
“I see no sense in voting a forty-year bond issue
for a five-year road,” he told county commissioners.
He was a strong advocate for Grand Prairie
from the day he arrived in the town, and over
the course of his lifetime would be one of its
biggest benefactors.
A MAIN STREET MAINSTAY
Since the late 1800s, there has been no
shortage of drug stores in Grand Prairie. But
perhaps none would have as long-lasting an
36 ✦ HISTORIC GRAND PRAIRIE

impact as Millar Drugs, which Charles Dewey
Millar opened in 1927 at 106 West Main Street.
Charles Millar’s grandfather, Garrett Van
Meter Millar, arrived from Illinois in 1895
with his family, minus son Charles. Charles
Sherrard Millar and his wife, Jennie Melissa,
joined the family in Texas in 1899, bringing
with them their 4-year-old son, Harold;
daughter, Greta, 3; and 10-month-old son,
Charles Dewey.
Greta’s daughter, Dorothy Brown, said the
family farmed in Illinois where they had brick
barns to protect their animals in cold weather.
They made their own bricks for their irrigation
ditches, and also sold bricks to other farmers.
They were enticed to Texas by cheap land, but
once here went broke because they didn’t know
the first thing about growing cotton.
Dewey Millar eventually went to work at
Hancock Drug Store on Main Street. When
business was slow, Warren Hancock encouraged
Dewey to read his pharmacy books. After a few
years of studying the books, Dewey took and
passed the state’s pharmaceutical licensing test.
He opened his pharmacy across the street
from Hancock’s store, and a year later married
Ruby Clark. She was a schoolteacher and
founding member of the Grand Prairie
Soroptimist Club.
Dewey Millar was the first Rotary Club
president, and active in the YMCA, the Chamber
of Commerce, Boys Baseball, and the school
board. In 1942 he joined the Navy as a
pharmacist second class, leaving Ruby to run
the store during the war.
Although Dorothy Brown grew up in Dallas,
her family came “home” to Grand Prairie every
weekend. They always stopped in at Uncle
Dewey’s store for a fountain treat.
“We would just go sit up at the bar and I’d
get a double dip ice cream cone,” Dorothy said.
“He made his own ice cream. All I remember
was vanilla.”
Dr. Robert C. Shanks saw patients in the back
of the store until just before his death in 1943.
In 1961, Carroll and Martha Cooper became
partners with the Millars, eventually taking over
ownership in 1970.
❖
Above: Looking southeast from the
water tower at the Texas Cracker and
Biscuit Company, 1921. The newly
completed Dallas-Fort Worth Pike,
better known as the Bankhead
Highway, is in the foreground.
Below: Billy Turner and Dewey Millar
take a break from their work turning
the building behind them into Millar
Drug Store. The store opened in 1927
at 106 West Main Street.
The History of Grand Prairie ✦ 37

❖
Above: The Bagdad Club in 1929,
less than a year after it opened east
of town on the Dallas Fort Worth
Pike. Despite management’s promise
of one of the largest dance floors in
Dallas and a first-rate dining
experience, the dinner club struggled
to draw customers.
Below: By the time the Bagdad
Club was destroyed by fire in April
1953, it was being used to house an
art collection.
The Coopers kept the original name but
expanded the fountain into a full café. The
drugstore had for years been a great place to meet
over a soda, but it also became a gathering place
for prayer groups, meetings and hungry crowds.
The store has seen several transformations
since the Coopers retired in 1998, including a
convenience store and a home-style café, minus
the pharmacy.
LET ME ENTERTAIN YOU
In the 1920s, Grand Prairie families could
attend church revivals and school plays, ice cream
suppers and watermelon socials, community fairs
and movie theaters.
For the adults in 1928 there was an unusuallooking
building going up just east of town on
the pike. The Bagdad Supper Club was a
Moorish-style, two-story building clad in
pinkish grey stucco.
Managing director F. W. Day promised
theatrical entertainment, one of the largest
dance floors in Dallas and a tent effect showing
the night sky over the dining and dance hall.
“It is our purpose to put Dallas night life
under a refined atmosphere, and afford a place
of amusement for those who find pleasure in
high-class restaurant service, dancing and
music,” he said.
The club opened Thanksgiving Day, and by
the next June added a cooling system and
summer schedule. Bebe Bingham, who in later
years would be a Grand Prairie teacher,
principal and trustee, crawled around the club
as a baby when her father, Mose Carter, played
trumpet and violin at the club in 1934.
The dance band played a two-night gig,
and Bebe’s mother, Revelle Carter, was
impressed by the large display at the club’s
entrance that featured a dozen red roses frozen
in a block of ice.
Whether it was the poor timing of opening
just before the Depression or Dallasites’
reluctance to drive eight miles west for
entertainment, the Bagdad Club struggled from
the beginning. Floorshows were regularly
discontinued and reinstated, summer shows
abandoned, menus changed, and new
management frequently replaced.
Club scenes for the 1947 comedy film,
Juke Joint, starring Spencer Williams were
filmed at the Grand Prairie nightspot. Three
years later, the Chicago-based film firm,
All American News, leased the building for its
southwest headquarters.
Then in 1953, new owners Dr. and Mrs.
Frank H. Newton began transforming the
club into a fine arts center, bringing in “a
lifetime of art treasures from around the world.”
The collection, valued by the Newtons at $1
million but insured for only $20,000, was
destroyed by fire in early April 1953 along with
the Bagdad building.
TAKING
FLIGHT
In late 1928, the city of Dallas bought 300 acres
just east of Grand Prairie for a new airfield, and the
38 ✦ HISTORIC GRAND PRAIRIE

War Department ordered a year-round training
school for reserve flyers at the site. The following
year, the 77th Observation Squadron was moved
from Fort Worth and the 366th Observation
Squadron moved from Love Field in Dallas to the
new airfield. It was named for Colonel William
Hensley who, with Lieutenant Harry Weddington,
inspected and approved the airfield a few months
before Colonel Hensley death.
The following July, New York-based Curtiss-
Wright Flying Service announced plans to
purchase 295 acres near Dalworth for a
commercial port.
Thus began the aviation industry in the
sleepy little town of Grand Prairie.
Residents got their first taste of what was to
come at an air show on August 23, 1929, at
Hensley Field. Grand Prairians joined Dallas
officials and Army brass for the show that
featured acrobatic and formation flying, as well
as parachutists.
The following April, Curtiss-Wright officials
hosted a two-day celebration to mark the
opening of its new airfield. The Dallas Morning
News described the events:
Gayly-colored planes, red, green, orange,
blue, black and yellow, shiny as nursery
room toys, were lined up or flown through
breath-taking maneuvers Saturday afternoon at
the Curtiss-Wright Flying Service field at
Dalworth in opening a two-day celebration in
dedicating that $250,000 airport of 300
acres and modern hangar. Several thousand
spectators and their automobiles lined the
fringes of the airdrome.
❖
Above: The grand opening celebration
of Curtiss-Wright Flying Service south
of Dalworth Park in April 1930
included acrobatics, a flying race and
lots of aircraft on display.
Below: Curtiss-Wright’s two-day
opening celebration in April 1930 was
the second in less than a year for area
residents. A similar air show in
August 1929 was held at Hensley
Field east of downtown.
The History of Grand Prairie ✦ 39

A week later, International Airways
Corporation began offering flying service from
Kansas City to Brownsville. The seven-hour flight
included stops in Tulsa, Oklahoma, the Curtiss-
Wright field in Grand Prairie, and San Antonio.
The cross-country flight was soon
discontinued and the flying school also
struggled, but Curtiss-Wright continued to
maintain the airfield until 1939. In May of that
year, Clarence E. Harman sold his interest in the
Dallas Aviation School and purchased the Grand
Prairie airport from Curtiss-Wright.
In 1940, Harman sold the airfield to Lou Foote
for $55,000, and Foote moved his flying service
from Love Field. He trained civilian pilots, with
most students coming from North Texas
Agricultural College (now the University of Texas
at Arlington).
SURVIVING THE DEPRESSION
How people fared during the Depression
depended on where they lived and their livelihood.
Businesses and banks were hardest hit, but
Pauline Jasper McCulley remembers that families
with a garden and livestock had an easier time.
Mrs. McCulley was born in 1922 on a farm at
Twenty-first and Dalworth streets. Her parents,
Robert Charles and Pearl Jasper, had moved from
Grapevine a few years earlier, and her father was
overseer of the 168-acre farm for absent owner
Ed Geeo.
All six children helped with the work,
including picking cotton and corn, and helping
with the dairy.
“The raw milk we delivered to the porches
twice a day and picked up the empty bottles,”
Mrs. McCulley said. “We had an ice box and a
man who delivered ice to us, and I think Mama
bought about 50 pounds of ice a week.”
The farm was outside the city limits, but the
family belonged to First Baptist Church in
Grand Prairie, where they also attended public
school. They could catch a ride with their dad
making his morning deliveries, but usually
walked the two miles home.
“The Depression was hard, but as far as doing
without, we really didn’t because Daddy had a
garden and Mama canned,” Mrs. McCulley said.
“I can’t ever remember thinking I was poor.
Every time there was a party at church or
school, Mama saw that we had pretty clothes to
wear because she made them.”
When bad weather precluded working in the
fields, Mr. Jasper would go into town and stand
on the corner talking with other farmers, Mrs.
McCulley said. He was standing outside the
Grand Prairie State Bank the day it was robbed,
she said, although he didn’t realize anything was
amiss until it was over.
❖
During the Depression, social
activities centered around church and
school events, such as this Gopher
football game in the mid-1930s.
40 ✦ HISTORIC GRAND PRAIRIE

THE INFAMOUS BANK HEIST
Ask any longtime resident to name the
notorious criminals who robbed the Grand
Prairie State Bank on March 19, 1934, and
chances are they’ll answer, “Bonnie and Clyde!”
It’s an understandable mistake.
The infamous Dallas duo was, by then, well
into a murderous crime spree. Bonnie Parker and
Clyde Barrow occasionally lingered in Grand
Prairie, reportedly hiding in the abandoned
Goodwin cabin on Grand Prairie’s northwest side.
Locals along Westcliff Road on the southeast side
of town claimed the bandits used their road as a
shortcut across Mountain Creek into Duncanville
and Cedar Hill, and sometimes took refuge in the
area’s hilly terrain and thick underbrush.
Clyde and Ray Hamilton were identified as
the men who held up Grand Prairie’s Interurban
ticket office in 1932. Ray was later captured and
sent to prison for other crimes.
On Jan. 16, 1934, Bonnie and Clyde, along
with cohort James Mullens, helped Ray escape
from an Eastham Prison Unit work gang. Two
guards were shot during the escape, and one—
Major Joseph Crowson—died a few days later.
Ray stayed with the Barrow gang for a few
weeks, hitting gas stations for quick cash. What
happened next is still a matter of speculation.
Some historians believe that Ray wanted to
focus on bigger targets. Others think Bonnie and
Ray’s girlfriend, Mary O’Dare, had a falling out
that forced the men to choose sides. There also
was talk of Clyde catching Ray lining his
pockets with money from one of their hits.
Whatever the reasons, by the time two armed
men entered the Grand Prairie bank around 11
o’clock that Monday morning, Ray Hamilton
had severed ties with the Barrow gang. Acting
vice president J. F. Waggoner, cashier T. J.
Yeager, and assistant cashier and bookkeeper
Maude Crawford were the only people in the
bank when the robbery commenced.
Yeager was forced to open the vault and the
employees were held at gunpoint along a wall.
The second man scooped money from the
cashier’s window and the vault, nabbing a total
of $1,548.76, which the bank’s insurance
reimbursed within days.
The bank employees were forced into the
vault, but the lock was engaged in the open
position and the vault door could not be
secured. As soon as the men drove off in their
getaway car, Waggoner chased after them in his
car as far as Sowers, where they disappeared
down the road to Denton.
Rumors of the robbers’ identities ran
rampant, with many people crediting Clyde
Barrow. A note in the Carrollton Chronicle fed
those assertions: “Now on Monday of this week,
along comes Barrow and Hamilton, presumably,
and stage a bank robbery at Grand Prairie.”
❖
The Grand Prairie State
Bank, c. 1950. The bank was
robbed in 1934 by brothers Ray and
Floyd Hamilton and their cohort,
John Basden.
The History of Grand Prairie ✦ 41

Clyde Barrow and Bonnie, two of the
Southwests(sic) most noted criminals, were shot
to death in Louisiana Tuesday morning. For the
past six months or a year they have been
engaged in most all kinds of devilment.
❖
Above: First State Bank, which
converted to City National Bank in
1925, was one of several banks in
Grand Prairie before the Depression.
By the time the Hamiltons robbed the
Grand Prairie State Bank in 1934,
the number of financial institutions in
the city had dwindled.
Below: Works Progress Administration
projects in the 1930s included
improvements to Grand Prairie’s high
school and gymnasium, as well as a
new school in Dalworth.
But the bank employees identified the robbers
as Ray, his brother Floyd Hamilton, and John
Basden; all were captured the next month. The
three robbers were indicted and tried in Dallas
County, with Floyd eventually sent to Alcatraz.
After his release, he became a devout Christian
and worked for a Dallas car dealership.
Ray was executed for the death of Major
Crowson on May 10, 1935.
And although the deaths of Bonnie Parker
and Clyde Barrow on May 23, 1934, made
front-page news around the country, their
demise was only briefly noted two days later on
page 5 of the Grand Prairie Texan:
The Grand Prairie State Bank was hit again
two years later by a lone man who strolled in,
jammed a gun in cashier J. T. Yeager’s stomach
and threatened to shoot if money was not
forthcoming. Maude Crawford also was in the
bank that day, along with president G. W.
Bingham.
The tall, ruddy-faced man left with $1,360 in
hand, and it would take law officers three years
to catch up with Sam Houston Dugan, alias
Charles William Edmiston. Already serving a
109-year sentence in Huntsville for subsequent
crimes, Mr. Dugan pleaded guilty to the Grand
Prairie theft and was sentenced to another 20
years in Leavenworth prison.
EMERGING FROM
THE DEPRESSION
If Ray Hamilton and his cohorts hadn’t been in
such a rush, they could have stopped off at Luton’s
Sandwich Shop and Café, where all dinners cost a
quarter. Among the choices: Norwegian sardines
or pickled pigs feet with shredded lettuce and
goose liver with potato salad.
42 ✦ HISTORIC GRAND PRAIRIE

For the really big appetite, there was Nichol’s
Sandwich Shop—“The Place Where Most
Hungry People Eat.”
Joe T. Moore’s Cash Grocery featured homekilled
meat, pork and beans for a nickel, green
beans or spinach for a dime, and coffee at
twenty-eight cents a pound.
With the nation struggling under the weight of
the Depression, even those prices were too much
for some people. For the unemployed, help
arrived in the form of government work programs.
The Civil Works Administration, unveiled in
November 1933, employed four hundred Grand
Prairie residents at its peak. But the program
was short-lived, and by March only one
hundred were left on the rolls. Mayor Turner
promised unfinished projects that would keep a
few people working until May, but CWA
workers were told to find other work.
That federal program was replaced with the
Works Progress Administration. By the time the
program ended in 1943, workers had installed
more than two miles of sidewalks in Grand
Prairie, as well as 5,200 feet of sewer lines, 400
feet of storm sewers and 25 culverts.
Among other Grand Prairie projects were
improvements to the community center, the
high school and its gymnasium; concrete tennis
courts in the city park, and a new school in
Dalworth. At Hensley Field, improvements were
made on the runway and hangars, a gasoline
service station was constructed and housing for
officers and enlisted men was expanded.
Even as these projects were under way, there
were signs of financial recovery. Chief among
them was the resumption of work on a lake
south of Hensley Field, as noted in The Dallas
Morning News on September 16, 1936:
Announcement of the Dallas Power & Light
Company that it will complete Mountain Creek
Lake may be accepted as another sign that the
depression is over…. The dam, which was begun
in 1930, was not completed because of slackened
demand for power during the depression.
That same year, Dr. Copeland was honored
on his sixty-first birthday with a gathering
attended by 285 people delivered by him since
his 1902 arrival in Grand Prairie. Dr. Copeland
received a new car and a book bearing the
names of the many babies he had brought into
the world.
That list grew to almost 4,000 names by the
time Dr. Copeland died at age 93.
BOOM
TOWN
Grand Prairie’s population grew by only 66
people during the 1930s. In fact, the U.S.
Census shows the town’s population of 1,263 in
1920 had grown only to 1,595 in 1940.
That would soon change.
In July 1940 the U.S. government announced
plans to build a $7-million plane factory adjacent
to Hensley Field. The one-million-square-foot
facility would be leased to North American Aviation
and turn out 300 to 400 planes per month.
Ground was broken in September, the same
month plans were announced to establish a
Naval Air Station at Hensley Field. Before the
war ended, the Navy also would take over Lou
Foote’s airport on the other side of town.
With 12,000 workers and their families
expected at the North American Aviation facility,
a WPA crew began building a community of 300
pre-fabricated homes in April 1941. The
housing project was dubbed Avion Village,
“avion” being French for “airplane.”
“This is in keeping with our plans to make
the housing project a park living development,
streamlined like the airplanes on which its
tenants will work,” architect Dave Williams told
The Dallas Morning News.
❖
The Works Progress Administration
made improvements to the runway
and hangars at Hensley Field in the
1930s. A gasoline service station
also was constructed, and housing
for officers and enlisted men
was expanded.
The History of Grand Prairie ✦ 43

❖
Above: In July 1940, stacks of more
than one hundred thousand old tires
at the Texas Tire and Rubber
Company caught fire. The huge black
smoke was a familiar sight for several
days as the fire smoldered, and also
temporarily rid the city of mosquitoes.
Below: Sinclair Service Station and
Radio Shop, c. 1941. A Sonic
restaurant now occupies the site at
Main and Fourth Streets.
The first tenants arrived in August, including
Marjorie Marie Sullivan and her fiancé Floyd
Lowell Jackson, a milling machine operator. The
Oklahoma natives celebrated the occasion by
marrying in front of their new home.
Tenants paid $21.50 to $29 a month, with
utilities paid separately. But taxes could not be
assessed against government property, which
left city officials wondering who would pay for
support services like schools, fire and police
protection, and sewage and garbage removal.
The problem was addressed through special
legislation allocating a percentage of the rental
fees to local taxing agents. Grand Prairie
received the first payment of $20,000 in 1943.
Not all of the newly arrived workers lived in
Grand Prairie. A similar housing project was built
east of the plant at Cockrell Hill, and workers
found homes in Dalworth Park and Arlington.
But the effect on Grand Prairie’s growth was
explosive. By 1943 the city had added 10,000
people, and more than 2,100 new homes had
been built.
Mrs. George F. Liggett, widowed since 1937,
was one of many residents turning homes into
boarding houses to accommodate the defense
workers. Despite two new elementary schools
and expansion of the high school, the younger
students operated on a split shift with half
attending morning classes and the remaining
going to school after lunch.
War rationing was in full swing, and The
Grand Prairie Texan kept residents apprised of
the latest rationing books. In mid-May 1943 the
stamps allowed a pound of coffee through May
30, one pair of shoes until June 15, and five
pounds of sugar through May 31.
Pauline Jasper McCulley was chief clerk at
Grand Prairie’s office of price administration.
“The government set prices, and we had
volunteers go into the store to check the prices,”
she said. “If you were a truck driver, you got
extra gasoline. Tires were retread by putting a
thin coat of rubber on the outside to make them
last longer.”
Two new businesses, the Aircraft Foundry
and Pattern Company and Aircraft X-Ray
Laboratories, moved from California to Grand
Prairie. Some local companies converted to
wartime production, including the United Broom
Factory, the American Body and Equipment
Company, Gifford Hill Pipe Company and the
Texas Tire and Rubber Company.
THE BOOM ALMOST
GOES BUST
At the peak of production in April 1944,
North American Aviation boasted 38,500
workers. The initial A plant, built to produce
AT-6 trainers followed by P-51 Mustangs,
was joined by the B plant in 1942 for B-24
bomber production.
In four years, the workers built 18,500
planes and parts to equal another 3,500 aircraft.
44 ✦ HISTORIC GRAND PRAIRIE

But in August 1945 all defense contracts
were cancelled and production ordered to cease,
with only a few employees retained for
termination activities. Grand Prairie suddenly
had a large population in search of work.
By the next year, several hundred former
North American workers who once riveted
aluminum into aircraft parts and skins were using
those skills to build boats for the newly formed
Lone Star Boat Company. Within ten years, Lone
Star was America’s largest manufacturer of
aluminum and fiberglass boats, with additional
plants in Indiana, Florida, and Pennsylvania.
The company moved in 1961 to new
headquarters in Plano. Four years later, Chyrsler
Corp. purchased the company for a purported
$10 million.
With the demise of North American Aviation,
city officials in 1946 were left pondering what to
do with an empty sixty-six-acre facility just
outside their city limits. Then in November 1947,
Connecticut-based Chance Vought Aircraft began
negotiating with the Navy to lease the site.
A group of 18 Grand Prairie business leaders
and officials, led by Chamber President W. A.
Hotchkiss, headed to Connecticut the following
April to extend a welcoming hand. Moving the
company and fifteen hundred families was a
yearlong process described in The Dallas
Morning News three months later:
Multiply moving day by 1,500, throw in a
thousand or more moving vans of furniture and
railroad cars to carry 50,000,000 pounds of
machinery, add the distance halfway across the
continent—and you have it.
The move was completed by 1949, and
within two years 6,000 employees were
building Cutlass twin-engine jets and Corsair
piston-engine fighters for the U.S. Navy.
Use of the old Lou Foote airport west of town
was transferred from the Navy to the North
Texas Agricultural College School of Aeronautics
in 1947. The field also would be used as Grand
Prairie’s municipal airport, with the city and
school leasing the field from the Navy.
The college operated its flying school there
until 1952. City officials wanted control of the
airfield, but in 1954 the Forty-ninth Armored
Division of the Texas National Guard moved
operations to the Grand Prairie Airport.
Two years later the city annexed the airfield
amid a push to sell the land to tax-paying
industries. But the airfield was transferred to
Army control a few months later, and the
decision was left to the Guard.
Grand Prairie Mayor C. R. Sargent argued
that the tract was too small for jet training, and
that the Guard’s use of the field created offensive
noises and hazards for residents.
His words fell on deaf ears, but city officials
continued their fight to control the field. In 1962,
❖
Above: The $20,000 showplace home
of Mr. and Mrs. George F. Liggett was
completed in 1931. After his death in
1937, Mrs. Liggett turned the home
into a boarding house for teachers and
defense plant workers.
Below: Roger Dickey with a P-51
Mustang built at North American
Aviation’s Plant A. At its peak
production in 1944, the company
employed 38,500 workers.
The History of Grand Prairie ✦ 45

❖
Looking east down Main Street
in 1945.
the town was finally given the deed to
approximately 238 acres with the federal government
controlling 42 acres for use by the Guard.
Four years later, the city sold 127 acres and
built a new municipal airfield 3-1/2 miles south
at Arkansas Lane and Great Southwest Parkway.
The Guard continued to use the site near Carrier
Parkway and Jefferson Boulevard into the 1970s.
The airport’s eastern side became the site of
the city’s main library and public safety
complex, as well as a bank and shopping center.
The runways eventually became West Freeway,
which ran alongside an industrial complex and
is now part of State Highway 161.
THE ANNEX WARS
Grand Prairie was growing by leaps and
bounds, and in 1950 boasted a population of
13,241. Emmadeen Berry with the Chamber of
Commerce deemed it one of the fastest growing
cities in the nation.
She noted that the city had thirty-five
churches and missions, eight schools and three
in the works, a new $100,000 city park and
swimming pool, two downtown theaters, a
drive-in theater and a lighted baseball diamond.
The city also had its own water supply, thanks to
ten artesian wells that were tested weekly.
Grand Prairie was expanding its boundaries
at a fast pace as well, and had been since 1948.
Until then annexing land was a slow process
that required a majority of residents to agree to
the change. The issue was debated for years in
Dalworth Park before residents decided, by a
vote of 81 to 15, to dissolve as an incorporated
town in 1942, thereby enabling Grand Prairie to
annex the community.
Texas law permitted cities with a population of
at least five thousand to adopt a home-rule charter
government, which in turn allowed unincorporated
property to be annexed by a council vote.
Grand Prairie maintained its mayor-alderman form
of government through 1947.
Then, in a surprise move, Dallas pushed its
city limits all the way to Grand Prairie. The
annexation took in Mountain Creek Lake, the
former North American Aviation plant and
Hensley Field.
Grand Prairie Mayor G. H. Turner likened the
move to Hitler’s invasion of Poland. Dallas
officials countered that they were trying to
forestall a rumored annexation attempt by
Grand Prairie.
“This excuse is the same Hitler gave for
invading Poland—he said he was about to be
attacked,” Mayor Turner told The Dallas Morning
News. “The Grand Prairie City Council had
made no annexation plans, had not even
discussed taking in the area in question.”
Eight months later, Grand Prairie voters
overwhelmingly approved a home-rule city
charter. The city council wasted no time
exercising its annexation powers, taking in 171
acres of industrial and commercial property
extending toward Dallas between Highway 80
and the railroad tracks. The city also annexed
forty acres of housing additions, and vowed to
annex new neighborhoods as fast as the houses
could be built.
But the city wasn’t quick enough to dodge
another major blow, this time from the west.
46 ✦ HISTORIC GRAND PRAIRIE

Perhaps Grand Prairie officials were lulled into
complacency by an inter-city meeting in June
1951, called after Arlington annexed six square
miles that moved its eastern limits within 3,000
feet of Grand Prairie.
Both sides vowed to work together on water
supply, housing and annexation, but two
months later General Motors announced plans
to build a plant in the area recently annexed by
Arlington. Grand Prairie immediately passed an
ordinance annexing the property, claiming
Arlington had violated the cities’ “gentleman’s
agreement” and had no constitutionally legal
home-rule charter.
The matter appeared headed for court, but
Grand Prairie already had countered by pushing
its boundaries into Tarrant County just north of
the disputed land. Following another inter-city
meeting, Grand Prairie rescinded its ordinance
annexing the General Motors property and the
matter was dropped.
Meanwhile, Grand Prairie officials were
trying to wrangle the former North American
Aviation property from Dallas. With Chance
Vought moved in, the property was generating
$240,000 in annual taxes for Dallas. Grand
Prairie officials set up a pep rally across the
street from the plant in 1955, even bringing in
the high school band, and offered to trade
fourteen thousand acres for the site.
“It costs $3.50 for every man, woman and
child in Grand Prairie for service rendered these
plants while we benefit not one penny taxwise,”
Mayor C. R. Sargent said.
Despite the tempting offer and catchy
slogan—“Grand Prairie Deserves the Plant She
Serves”—Dallas officials would not budge. More
than half a century later, the plant still lies
within Dallas’ city limits.
MID- CENTURY
EXPLOSION
Grand Prairie continued its high-speed
growth, adding another seventeen thousand
people to its rolls between 1950 and 1960. A
$70,000 Memorial Library opened in 1954, and
❖
Above: A couple poses under the
arbor in Dalworth Park, which was
annexed by the city of Grand Prairie
in 1942 after residents voted for
unincorporation. The red-brick
building on the left opened as the
Dalworth Business College in 1913,
but later became home to the
Rainbow Gardens dinner club.
Below: A night view of downtown
Grand Prairie, c. 1950.
The History of Grand Prairie ✦ 47

a $10,000 branch library opened in Dalworth.
Former Mayor G. H. Turner gave $10,000
toward a library in the Florence Hill community.
Turner, president of Grand Prairie State Bank,
also paid for the annual Christmas parties and
Easter Egg hunts for the city’s children. In the
days before integration, separate hunts were
held for the city’s white children and African-
American children.
When rumors of a black market for polio
vaccine surfaced, Turner allowed eighteen
hundred doses to be stored under guard at his
bank. As a real estate developer, he also built
numerous houses, including 89 in Turner Estates
a mile south of town, another 60 in Keith Heights
on the west side, and 27 in Oakwood Estates.
In gratitude, the city renamed the city park in
Mr. Turner’s honor a few years before his death
in 1959.
In 1957, the Grand Prairie Texan described
the modern homes being built in Turner Estates
and other new neighborhoods:
New fashions in houses have meant
expansion of plumbing lines. Today two and
three bathrooms in each home are accepted
quite matter-of-factly and central heating and air
conditioning is often a must. Automatic washers
must be accommodated.
INDUSTRY
& HOSPITALS
In the mid-1950s, a group of investors led by
Angus G. Wynne, Jr., began buying property
north of Highway 80 on both sides of the
county line. Great Southwest Corporation began
building a five-thousand-acre industrial park
along the Dallas-Fort Worth Turnpike, which
was under construction.
The meticulous landscaping and artistic
touches soon made Great Southwest Industrial
District a jewel among U.S. business parks. Fifty
years later, Grand Prairie officials refer to GSWID
as the city’s economic engine, generating about
29 percent of the city’s ad valorem taxes.
But in the initial phases, the park was slow to
take off. To fund the district’s roads, sewer lines
and other infrastructure, the corporation built an
amusement park in Arlington next to the turnpike.
Six Flags Over Texas was meant to be a
temporary endeavor when it opened in 1961.
Instead, it became a popular tourist destination
that not only provided the cash flow needed to
jumpstart the nearby industrial park, but spawned
other amusement parks throughout the U.S.
The opening of the turnpike in August 1957
streamlined travel between Dallas and Fort
Worth. It also provided a detour away from
Grand Prairie’s downtown, and within two years
❖
An artist’s conception of Great
Southwest Industrial District, which
opened in the late 1950s on the north
side of Arlington and Grand Prairie.
The 5,000-acre industrial park still
generates about 29 percent of Grand
Prairie’s ad valorem tax.
48 ✦ HISTORIC GRAND PRAIRIE

traffic along Highway 80/Main Street was
reduced by eight thousand vehicles a day.
In the late 1950s, Grand Prairie joined with
Dallas, Irving and Farmers Branch to build a $7-
million sewage treatment plant. The city laid
water mains to connect with Dallas’ supply after
acknowledging that its artesian wells would be
inadequate within a few years.
At the time, Grand Prairie’s incorporated area
was about thirteen square miles. Approximately
sixty-eight additional square miles were under
first reading for annexation, but a lack of funds
for infrastructure kept those areas on hold.
But when the state legislature threatened to
limit annexations, the city council quickly voted
to increase its land holdings in nearby Tarrant
County to five square miles and take in threefourths
of the industrial district.
The move finalized a series of first reading
annexations, some of which had been on hold
since 1948, and increased Grand Prairie’s
municipal area from 16.17 to 56.95 square miles.
The city limits stretched north to the Rock
Island Railroad, west through the industrial
park into Tarrant County, south to a point
beyond the Florence Hill Community and east
to Mountain Creek.
With more people also came more doctors.
Brothers Emil and Albert Plattner, osteopathic
doctors, were practicing in Grand Prairie by
1940 at the seven-bed Plattner Clinic. Eight
years later they were joined by their brothers,
Herman and Don, also osteopathic doctors.
The brothers built a new clinic and twentybed
hospital in 1959 at 322 Northeast Eighth
Street. The $135,000 facility featured air
conditioning and oxygen piped into each room.
Dr. H. H. Milling opened Milling Sanitorium
at 810 Davis Street in 1948. The hospital had 15
private rooms, two wards, a large dining room,
and a sunroom.
❖
Left: The Pepsi Cola Company moved
into its manufacturing plant in Great
Southwest Industrial District in 1965.
In keeping with Great Southwest
Corporation President Angus G.
Wynne Jr.’s request for non-traditional
buildings, the plant was covered in
light blue and white tiles.
Below: Fieldcrest Mills and
Nationwide Papers moved into
the Great Southwest Industrial
District in the mid-1960s.
The History of Grand Prairie ✦ 49

2000. Plans are under way to renovate and
reopen the facility.
MOVING
FORWARD
Great Southwest General Hospital opened in
1961 on Duncan Perry Road with seventy-eight
beds. The ten-bed Miller Hospital opened
around 1959 and later became Whitcomb
Memorial Hospital.
Also in 1959, Mid-Cities Memorial Hospital
was built on Sherman Street in Tarrant County.
The forty-five-bed facility, a non-profit osteopathic
hospital, was expanded in 1974 and reopened as
Grand Prairie Community Hospital with a staff
comprised of osteopathic and medical doctors.
While the other hospitals eventually closed,
the hospital on Sherman Street became Dallas-
Fort Worth Medical Center and operated until
From the late 1950s until 1974, Grand Prairie
embarked on several federally funded urban
renewal projects. The programs were both
blessing and curse, enabling the city to install
water and sewer lines in several areas, including
the Dalworth community, as well as paving a
large number of streets. That, in turn, helped
residents in the improved neighborhoods qualify
for federal loans to build better housing.
But urban renewal and other city enhancement
programs also brought about the razing of some
historic homes and buildings. A number of
houses on Church Street, part of the Original
Townsite urban renewal project, were demolished
to make way for the 1971 city hall expansion.
That same year, the cracker factory that had
been just west of Main since 1908 was torn
down for the widening of Jefferson Street. A
decade later, efforts to save the Spikes
Brothers/United Broom Factory at 1204 West
Main Street failed and the building was
demolished in 1983, in part to make way for
State Highway 161.
Other historical sites also have suffered setbacks.
The Jordan-Bowles home fell victim to fires
in 1999 and 2000, destroying historical items.
The home still stands in Bowles Park, but needs
major foundation and renovation work before it
can be reopened.
The Goodwin Cabin was moved from its
original site in the Watson Community to
Cottonwood Park (now McFalls Park) in 1975.
It was near the end of a seven-year renovation
when arsonists set fire to the cabin in 2003,
leaving behind the chimney, historical marker
and charred remains.
Fortunately, the beautifully restored Copeland
home at 125 Southwest Dallas Street is a museum
open for tours several times a year. The Loyd
Homestead also has been preserved on its original
site in the park that bears the family name.
For years, Grand Prairie fought to find its
identity among North Texas cities, at one point
billing itself as “The Gateway to Six Flags.”
Today, the city encompasses 82 square miles
with a population of approximately 162,000.
50 ✦ HISTORIC GRAND PRAIRIE

❖
Opposite, top: The Veteran’s Memorial
just south of the Senior Citizen Center
at 925 Conover Drive pays tribute to
Grand Prairie military personnel
who died in service to their country.
The memorial was dedicated in
May 2005.
Opposite, bottom: The 7,500-acre Joe
Poole Lake opened in 1989 with 61
miles of shoreline. The $197-million
project was proposed in 1961 and
construction started in 1979. The lake
generated renewed growth south of
Interstate 20.
Much of that growth is due to the 1989
opening of Joe Pool Lake on the city’s south side.
New neighborhoods, large shopping centers and
recreational parks along the lake invigorated the
area, attracting both visitors and new residents.
With more than 6.5 million visitors a year,
Grand Prairie is one of the top entertainment
draws in the state.
At the north end of town, the Entertainment
District at Interstate 30 and Belt Line Road
features the city’s Tourist Center, Ripley’s Believe
It or Not/Palace of Wax museum, the 6,350-seat
Nokia Theatre, and a skate park. The district’s
crown jewel, Lone Star Park, brought simulcast
and Class I thoroughbred live horse racing to
North Texas in 1996.
At the south end of town, Traders’ Village, Joe
Pool Lake, Loyd Park, the Winery, Lynn Creek
Park and top-ranked Tangle Ridge Golf Course
balance the city’s growing tourist industry.
In perhaps the biggest nod to the city’s past,
downtown Grand Prairie has in recent years
been the focus of revitalization efforts. On-street
parking has been restored and new construction
in a style reminiscent of the early 1900s is
attracting new tenants. Down the street, the
Uptown movie theater is being converted into
an arts house by the city.
Alexander MacRae Dechman probably
wouldn’t recognize his original town plat in today’s
downtown, but he surely would have no problem
finding his pioneer spirit in Grand Prairie.
Left: The Tourist Information
Center welcomes visitors in the city’s
Entertainment District at Interstate
30 and Belt Line Road. Ripley’s
Believe It or Not!/The Palace of Wax,
Nokia Theatre and Lone Star Park
at Grand Prairie are some of the
nearby attractions.
Below: The Uptown Theatre, once a
popular movie house in Grand
Prairie’s downtown. The theater is
being renovated by the city for use as
a performing arts center.
The History of Grand Prairie ✦ 51

52 ✦ HISTORIC GRAND PRAIRIE

SHARING THE HERITAGE
SPECIAL
THANKS TO
historic profiles of businesses,
organizations, and families that have
contributed to the development
and economic base of Grand Prairie
Grand Prairie ................................................................................54
Bell Aircraft Corporation .................................................................58
Grand Prairie Historical Organization, Inc.........................................61
Texas Trust Credit Union .................................................................62
Jackson Vending Supply, Inc.
Product Sales, Inc.
Store Service, Inc.................................................................64
Bancroft and Sons Transportation, Inc................................................66
Lockheed Martin Missiles and Fire Control .........................................68
Dr. Dale Whitcomb..........................................................................70
Guerrero-Dean Funeral Homes, Inc....................................................72
Grand Prairie Sports Facilities Development Corporation......................74
Don Juan’s Romantic Mexican Food....................................................76
Great Southwest Industrial District Association ...................................77
First Baptist Church........................................................................78
Grand Prairie Independent School District..........................................79
Mountain View College ....................................................................80
Dal-Worth Fabrication, Inc. .............................................................81
Grand Prairie Chamber of Commerce .................................................82
Metroplex Bail Bonds.......................................................................83
St. John Baptist Church ...................................................................84
REBCO Investment Company.............................................................85
Hopkins Realtor/Builders .................................................................86
Traders Village...............................................................................87
Douglas Bryan Photography, Inc........................................................88
Grand Bank of Texas .......................................................................89
Dot Communications & Electric Supply, Inc. .......................................90
Boriack Interiors, Inc.
Fleming & Son
Corporation
La Quinta Inn
Nina’s Cafe
Sharing the Heritage ✦ 53

GRAND PRAIRIE
❖
Families enjoy the hometown,
friendly atmosphere of a grand city,
perfectly located in between Dallas
and Fort Worth.
Brightly colored sails glide across the glass
surface of Joe Pool Lake. An early morning
foursome swings against a backdrop of emerald
fairways. Neighbors greet neighbors as they
garden, walk and bike. Generations gather at
Grandma’s for a Sunday picnic. Fathers,
mothers, kids and teachers cheer for Friday
night high school football. Welcome to one of
the nation’s busiest and most prosperous urban
centers, all in Grand Prairie, Texas.
The City of Grand Prairie offers relaxation,
family fun, friendly neighbors and a smart place
to live and do business. More than 160,000
people live in Grand Prairie making it the
seventh largest city in the Dallas-Fort Worth
Metroplex and sixteenth largest city in Texas.
Generally speaking, our residents are thirtysomething,
dual income homeowners.
“In Grand Prairie, families stay here for
generations,” said Mayor Charles England.
“Grand Prairie is friendly, you know
your neighbors, and we’re near everything in
the Metroplex.”
Grand Prairie is considered a progressive city
with positive leadership. Grand Prairie employs
almost 1,200 full-time employees.
“Our business is to deliver service that makes
our customers say ‘Wow!’” said City Manager
Tom Hart. “Our employees live our mission,
which is to ‘Create Raving Fans by Delivering
World Class Service.’”
As a “Home Rule City,” Grand Prairie is
governed by the laws of the State of Texas
within the framework of the City Charter. The
city operates under a Council-Manager
form of government, which combines strong
leadership and representative democracy
through elected officials and a professionally
trained city manager.
The City Council serves as the community’s
decision makers and is made up of six members
who represent six council districts, two
members who represent the city “at large,” and
a mayor who is also elected at large. Mayor
Charles England has served as the City of Grand
Prairie’s mayor since 1992.
The 2006-2007 budget totaled $207 million.
The city continues to upgrade existing streets
and alleys with the citizen-approved onequarter
cent sales tax for streets as well as invest
in the parks system with the one-quarter cent
sales tax for parks.
Conveniently located between Dallas and
Fort Worth, the city’s eastern boundary is twelve
miles west of downtown Dallas and the western
edge is fifteen miles east of Fort Worth. Just five
54 ✦ HISTORIC GRAND PRAIRIE

minutes south of DFW International Airport,
the city enjoys easy access to anywhere and
everywhere on Interstate 20, Interstate 30, State
Highway 360, Loop 12 and Spur 303. Grand
Prairie residents look forward to increased travel
convenience as construction continues on the
ten-mile extension of State Highway 161 to
I-20. By 2010, the SH 161 corridor will become
a major north-south highway that connects with
east-west freeways between Dallas and Fort
Worth, including SH 183, I-30 and I-20.
Grand Prairie boasts a wide range of housing
stock for all income levels, from quaint older
homes to spacious new homes. The average
price of a new home is $203,000, and the
average household income is $62,974. In 2005,
new residential construction rose to an all time
high with 2,995 completions with the heaviest
concentration in south Grand Prairie. In 2006,
new single family permits numbered 1,958.
New homes south of I-20 since 2000 total
about 9,000, with values ranging from
$180,000 to $400,000.
The Great Southwest Industrial Park contains
an estimated 58 million square feet of building
space. About sixty-one percent lies in Grand
Prairie with the balance in Arlington. New and
expanding businesses in Grand Prairie in 2006
absorbed about 4.2 million gross square feet, up
from 3.9 million in 2005. Jobs accompanying the
new business activity numbered 1,871 in 2006
vs. 2,100 in 2005. New completed construction
increased to 1.2 million square feet in 2006
compared with 376,326 square feet in 2005.
Grand Prairie offers a variety of attractions
that encourage visitors to experience life as an
adventure. Tourists can play the horses at Lone
Star Park, rummage through the 125-acre flea
market at Traders Village, come face to face with
lifelike figures at Louis Tussaud’s Palace of Wax,
explore fascinating oddities from around the
world at Ripley’s Believe It Or Not!, dance in the
aisles at Nokia Theatre concerts, swing with
abandon at Tangle Ridge and Prairie Lakes golf
courses, and play on the beaches and camp
under the stars at the 7,500-acre Joe Pool Lake.
With almost 5,000 acres of parks,
well-established and new neighborhoods and
lively, competitive athletic programs, Grand
Prairie makes businesses and residents feel right
at home.
Fifty-four parks include a senior center, the
Ruthe Jackson Conference Center, 4 recreation
centers, 5 public swimming pools (including
one indoor pool), 2 beaches on Joe Pool Lake, a
campground, 5 softball and baseball complexes,
32 tennis courts and 18 soccer fields (4 lighted
adult and 6 lighted youth).
With the quarter cent sales tax devoted to
park improvements, a $125-million, 20-year
Parks Master Plan will improve every park in
Grand Prairie and add valuable new park land
on an ongoing basis.
In May 2007, voters further invested in the
future of Grand Prairie by approving:
• an eighth-cent sales tax for a new senior center;
• an eighth-cent sales tax for a new minor
league baseball stadium; and
• a quarter-cent sales tax for a new police center.
In addition to private golf courses and a
country club, the city’s two public top-ranked
golf courses offer outstanding golf at a great
price. The city’s Tangle Ridge Golf Course
features bentgrass greens in a Hill Country
atmosphere, and Prairie Lakes Golf Course
offers one of the best golf values in the area with
the largest practice putting green in Texas.
❖
Visitors cool off at Joe Pool Lake,
a recreation hot spot in south
Grand Prairie.
Sharing the Heritage ✦ 55

❖
Above: Lone Star Park at Grand
Prairie features the fun and
excitement of world class
thoroughbred and quarter horse
racing.
Below: Families and friends gather to
cheer on their teams at Friday night
high school football.
Grand Prairie’s main public library on 901
Conover Drive has 142,000 volumes. The city’s
branch library at 760 Bardin Road holds more
than 39,000 volumes, and a brand new branch
at the Bowles Life Center, 2750 Graham Street is
starting out with about 5,000.
One of the newest lakes in Texas, Joe Pool
Lake, is set among the rolling hills of south
Grand Prairie. Fishing, boating, swimming
and skiing are popular here. The lake’s
Lynn Creek Park features boat ramps, picnic
sites, beaches, volleyball, restrooms and
loads of natural beauty. The lake parks offer
visitors a grand experience—clean beaches,
shaded trails and ideal camping. And now
you can camp in style at Loyd Park in a
56 ✦ HISTORIC GRAND PRAIRIE

new, fully stocked camping cabin. Loyd Park
offers cabins, wooded camp sites, trails,
showers and restrooms. On the north shore,
just off Lake Ridge Parkway, Lynn Creek
Marina features boat slips, rentals, boat ramps
and fishing supplies for the angler. Adjacent
to the marina, the Oasis—a floating
restaurant—overlooks the waters of the lake and
serves up delicious fare and beverages.
The City of Grand Prairie takes pride in
maintaining a clean, respected community.
Presented with the Governor’s Community
Achievement Award in 1971, 1973, 1991, 2003
and 2006 for outstanding community
improvement, the city’s Keep Grand Prairie
Beautiful program continues to shine in
community leadership, education, public
awareness, litter prevention and cleanup, illegal
dumping enforcement, beautification and
property improvement and solid waste
management. Volunteers contribute thousands
of hours each year to improve the appearance of
local neighborhoods, schools, parks and other
public spaces in Grand Prairie.
The majority of Grand Prairie kids
attend schools in the Grand Prairie
Independent School District, which celebrated
its 100-year anniversary in the 2002-2003
school year.
GPISD is a fifty-eight square-mile district
serving more than 23,000 students within
the Dallas County portion of Grand Prairie.
The district boasts 36 campuses, including
23 elementary schools, 7 middle schools,
2 ninth grade centers, 2 high schools
and 2 alternative education schools. The
district employs more than 2,900 staff
members and offers a variety of services
and programs designed to help students
radiate success.
Students who reside in Tarrant County and
Grand Prairie attend Arlington Independent
School District, which has 50 elementary, 12
junior high and 6 high schools. Of these, six
elementary schools are actually in Grand Prairie.
Small portions of town lie in other school
districts such as Cedar Hill ISD, Irving ISD,
Mansfield ISD and Midlothian ISD.
❖
The city government takes pride in
creating Raving Fans by delivering
world class service to the citizens of
Grand Prairie.
Sharing the Heritage ✦ 57

BELL AIRCRAFT
CORPORATION
❖
Above: Bell Model 47 over new
Hurst, Texas plant, c. 1952.
Below: Air Force variants of V-22s in
flight over Kirtland AFB, New
Mexico, c. October 2006.
Vertical flight. A concept dating back to
Leonardo da Vinci and his invention—the helical
air screw, regarded as the first helicopter.
While many believed in the concept of vertical
flight, no one had been able to overcome the
problems of lift and stability. However, in the
1930s Arthur Young, a brilliant young inventor,
built and successfully demonstrated a viable,
flyable helicopter model.
Larry Bell, a successful entrepreneur and
founder of the Bell Aircraft Corporation, was so
impressed with Young’s efforts that in 1941 he
set the youthful inventor up in a small shop in
Gardenville, New York, about ten miles from
Bell’s Buffalo headquarters. The Bell Aircraft
Corporation had already won considerable
respect as the manufacturer of conventional
fixed-wing combat aircraft such as the P-39
Airacobra during World War II. In addition, Bell
was to develop the P-59, America’s first jet-powered
airplane, and the X-1, which was to
become the world’s first supersonic plane.
With limited resources at hand, Young and
his team soon developed the Bell Model 30—a
one-seat, open cockpit machine powered by a
165 horsepower engine. It could reach speeds of
100 mph in level flight, and promised to be one
of the most significant advances in aviation history.
The success of the Model 30 prototype
inspired, in rapid succession, a raft of improved
versions—each one incorporating refinements
drawn from previous efforts. And in March of
1946, more than a decade of hard work, commitment
and dedication culminated in the Bell
47B being awarded the world’s first helicopter
license ever granted by the Civil Aeronautics
Board (forerunner of today’s Federal Aviation
Administration). In the same year, Bell delivered
its first production-line helicopter to the Army.
And as the military discovered the advantages of
rotorcraft flight, the Bell 47 would subsequently
set the stage for a whole new industry.
58 ✦ HISTORIC GRAND PRAIRIE

By 1951, Bell helicopters were in service
around the world, breaking records as fast as
they were setting them. And since Bell Aircraft
Corporation’s reputation for helicopter manufacturing
began to rival its reputation as a
builder of conventional aircraft, the company
created a separate helicopter division that was
headquartered in Fort Worth, Texas. Bell continued
to manufacture and improve on the
Model 47 throughout the 1950s while finding
and developing new uses for helicopters in both
the military and commercial sector. Design and
development began to shift from piston powered
helicopters to those powered by turbine or
jet engines. Much of the foundation for what
would later become the Vietnam-era UH-1H, or
Huey, was laid during the late 1950s and early
1960s at Bell. More than 16,000 Hueys, including
the Huey Cobra gunship variant, have been
manufactured to date. This total makes the
Huey the second largest number of U.S. aircraft
units produced next to the Consolidated B-24
Liberator bomber.
At the same time, research and development
was exploring a Young devised and patented
innovative concept—a machine that combined
the best features of the helicopter and the airplane.
While Young had left the company before
anything substantive was accomplished, the
idea of a convertible helicopter lived on, and
Bell was a strong proponent of the concept. The
tilt-rotor machine, dubbed the XV-3, could fly
like a helicopter when its rotors were in the
upright position. It then could tilt the rotors forward
and use them like propellers to pull the
aircraft forward, with the lift being produced by
a fixed wing. As testing of the XV-3 progressed,
it was evident that tilting rotors could provide
safe and efficient flight. The program garnered
the attention of NASA who provided research
and development funding to help explore the
concept even further through a seven-year program
dubbed the XV-15. The XV-15 tilt-rotor’s
❖
Above: Bell Model 30 in test flight
at Bell Aircraft, Buffalo, New York
facility.
Below: Hueys on the production line
at Bell’s Hurst, Texas plant, c. 1967.
Sharing the Heritage ✦ 59

❖
Bell 206 prototype in test flight over
Fort Worth, Texas, c. 1965.
performance at the 1981 Paris Air Show caught
the attention of the Department of Defense who
commissioned a study of the technology. In
1983 the tri-service development JVX program
was commissioned. Bell decided to partner with
Boeing and the initial design of the Bell Boeing
V-22 Osprey was submitted and chosen. The V-
22 program faced many political and military
challenges over the course of the next two
decades as flight test progressed and production
ramped up. But visionaries and proponents of
the innovative tilt-rotor technology were to prevail
when in September 2007; the first squadron
of Marine MV-22s was deployed into action
in Afghanistan.
From 1951 to 1966, the Model 47 was Bell’s
only commercial product. Through improvements,
refinements and advances, it sustained
the company until newer models could be
designed and developed. In 1967,
Bell delivered the first production turbinepowered
commercial helicopter—the Bell
206 JetRanger. While a first in the commercial
helicopter sector, the 206 had been born out
of a military design failure. At the start of
the 1960s, Bell was one of three companies
selected to compete for a contract to supply a
four-seat, turbine light observation helicopter to
the Army. The design lost, but Bell opted to
develop a commercial variant. After a rework
in design, the 206 was launched and became
an immediate success. By 1972, over 500 had
been produced and the Model 47 was phased
out. Both the Army and the U.S. Navy later
selected the 206 as the basis for their turbine
helicopter trainer fleets, as have militaries of
other nations.
As the JetRanger’s popularity grew, operators
sought higher seating capacity. Bell responded
by stretching the cabin eighteen inches and the
tail boom by twelve inches. Bell then added two
rear-facing passenger seats and a beefier engine.
In 1975 the company delivered the first 206L
LongRanger. Since 1967, Bell has produced
more than 4,800 206 and 1,700 206Ls for civil
and military customers, making the 206
arguably the most popular turbine helicopter
ever built. The 206 fleet has amassed more
than 55 million flight hours to date with a current
backlog of orders extending out to the
2009-2010 timeframe.
For the next three decades Bell Helicopter
would continue its proud heritage of designing
and supporting the military with innovative
products such as the AH-1 Cobra attack helicopter
and the OH-58 Kiowa armed reconnaissance
helicopter. Both still in operation with the
Army and the Marines. Today, Bell’s military
programs include modernization of the UH-1N
Huey and AH-1W Cobra fleets for the Marines,
development of the new ARH-70A armed reconnaissance
helicopter for the Army, and
continued full-rate production of the V-22 for
the Air Force and Marines. During the same
time, many innovative and popular commercial
models were added to the Bell product line. The
Bell 412, a twin-engined cousin to the military
Huey, the Bell 407, a four-rotor variant of the
206L, the Bell 430, a twin-engine medium with
seating for nine passengers or two litters in an
emergency medical service configuration. Today,
Bell continues to develop and deliver innovative
and new technology driven commercial products
through the development of a new
twin-engined light helicopter—the Bell 429,
and the BA609—a commercial variant of the V-
22 that utilizes tilt-rotor technology. Today, the
collective Bell Helicopter fleet has grown to
more than 30,000 aircraft in use in 120 countries
around the world. Bell continues to build
on its long, proud heritage and history and
remains the innovator and leader in the
helicopter industry.
60 ✦ HISTORIC GRAND PRAIRIE

Every great city honors its past. In this spirit, the
Grand Prairie Historical Organization (GPHO) was
founded by Ruthe Jackson on August 26, 1975, to
preserve, maintain and interpret the history of
Grand Prairie. Today, there are nearly two hundred
members who inspire residents to shape the city’s
future with a greater respect for their heritage and
to gain a deeper appreciation of the important historical
role Grand Prairie has played in the history
of North Texas.
The GPHO also seeks to preserve the area’s rich
history through its historic locations, while also
serving as a repository for donated artifacts and historic
documents. The group has memorialized
many landmarks and events since its creation.
These include the purchase of the Copeland Home,
the founding of Grand Prairie on Dechman Day on
January 2 and the birthday of the city’s incorporation
on March 20. The GPHO sponsors March as
Grand Prairie’s History Appreciation Month in conjunction
with the Copeland Open House, providing
a rare and very special look into our rich past.
Since 2005 the GPHO has seen a steady increase
in membership with life memberships increasing
by twenty percent in the last two years. Members
meet four times annually—in August, November,
February and May—at the Ruthe Jackson Center.
The GPHO has long been defined by its strong
and dedicated leadership. Founding officers of the
organization include Ruthe Jackson, president;
Bobbie Taylor, vice president; Ray Phillips, secretary-treasurer;
and Janie D. Read, publicity. Past
presidents include Ruthe Thompson Jackson
(1975-1977, 1993-1995), Penny Penwell (1977-
1980), Bobbie Taylor (1980-1981), Gail Plattner
(1981-1983), Jo Robertson Campbell (1983-
1986), Gussie Duvall Boyd (1987-1989), Janice
Duvall Barrett (1989-1993, 1997-1999), Verna
Waddell (1995-1997), Charles Powers (1999-
2001), Bobby Donaldson (2001-2005), Angela
Sutton Giessner (2005-2007), who with Brian W.
Bingham began the Grand Prairie history book in
2006, and Lynn Motley elected in 2007. Current
officers are, Lynn Motley, president; Brian W.
Bingham, vice president; Carol Liggett Bell, treasurer;
Susie Martin Roberts, secretary.
The GPHO also celebrates its growing list of life
members, including Judy Armstrong, Billy Joe
Armstrong, Carol Bell, Grant Bell, Brian W.
Bingham, L. R. Cannon, Ouida Chapman Lewis,
Lisa Chennault Brown, Helen Chennault, Thomas
Chennault, Thomas B. Chennault, Jorja Jackson
Clemson, City of Grand Prairie Marketing, Marge
Copeland, H. Victor Copeland, Jerry Corley, Cheryl
Friman Dover, Charles and Janice England,
Olive Galloway, Norma Hale, Marvin J. (Jack)
Hays, Lee D. Herring, Thomas Hight, Ruthe
Thompson Jackson, Marie Kerr Stufflebeme, Blythe
Kizziar, Duane McGuffey, Lynn Motley, Betty
Phillips, Charles Powers, Bob Roberts, Susan
Shuffler, Fynlon and Eugenia Simpson, Ouida
Daugherty Smith, Amy Sprinkles, Angela
Sutton Giessner, Donald Taylor, Kim Thorne,
Laura Thompson Potter, and Paul and
Madie Vernon.
The GPHO is located at 1516 West Main
Street at the Copeland Home and on the
Internet at www.gphistorical.com. Please
visit the GPHO at one of its meetings.
Fascinating history will come alive for you!
The Grand Prairie Historical Organization
would like to thank Kathy Goolsby for her
months of work and dedication to this book.
GRAND PRAIRIE HISTORICAL
ORGANIZATION, INC.
❖
Above: Two freight interurban cars
photographed from the original city
water works elevated water storage
take about 1921. The road in the
foreground is Dallas-Ft Worth Pike
which was finished in April 1921.
Note Jefferson Avenue does not exist.
Today you will find Ford & Son Inc,
tax office, 303 West Jefferson right
behind the interurban cars.
Sharing the Heritage ✦ 61

TEXAS TRUST
CREDIT UNION
Doing more at every turn has long been
the slogan of Texas Trust Credit Union and
its nearly two hundred employees. With 55,000
members and over $500 million in assets, it
has made a long and prosperous journey over
the past 71 years from its humble beginnings.
On April 30, 1936, Chance Vought Aircraft
Federal Credit Union was founded in East
Hartford, Connecticut. Ten employees from
Chance Vought Aircraft Corporation pooled
their savings to make loans to other employees
in need. Located in East Hartford, Connecticut
with the sponsor company, the Credit Union
served the company’s employees and members
of their immediate families.
In 1948, Chance Vought Aircraft and the
Credit Union moved to Dallas and continued a
successful era of growth and financial stability.
The years of 1951 through 1958 were good
years for the Credit Union. The Board was progressive
in offering new services, high dividends
and even a loan interest refund was given to the
membership. In 1952 the Credit Union had
5,036 members and was the largest credit union
in Texas. In 1953 the membership base was up
to 6,453 and assets surpassed the $1-million
mark. During 1957 the Credit Union replaced
much of its obsolete equipment and launched a
membership drive that resulted in a forty percent
increase in membership from 8,704 to
12,247. By 1959 the Credit Union’s assets had
reached $5.8 million, making it the tenth largest
credit union in the United States.
In early 1961, the name of the Credit
Union was changed to Chance Vought Federal
Credit Union. In 1962, there was a merger of
Chance Vought and Ling Temco. The result was
a merger of two credit unions into one, creating
LTV Federal Credit Union. The Credit Union
initiated progressive loan policies to include
open-end loan programs with a pre-approved
credit limit and unsecured loan limits
were increased. The Credit Union saw
remarkable growth beginning in 1962 and by
1966, assets were $11.4 million and there were
12,697 members. By 1970, the Credit
Union’s assets had increased to $23.4 million.
In 1976, the Credit Union was the fiftyseventh
largest credit union in the United
States with assets of $54.7 million and
22,884 members.
The Credit Union purchased land in Grand
Prairie for the construction of a branch office in
1977. In early 1978, the first branch office was
opened that was off-site of the LTV facility.
In 1991, the Credit Union merged with
Henderson County Teachers Federal Credit
Union and ultimately changed its name to
Vought Heritage Federal Credit Union to reflect
the changes in its field of membership in 1992.
As the Credit Union entered the twenty-first
century, a number of important events have
paved the way for their continued success
and outstanding service to the membership. In
2000 the Credit Union changed from a
Federally Chartered, association-based field of
62 ✦ HISTORIC GRAND PRAIRIE

membership to a state-chartered, communitybased
field of membership. In 2004, it became
Texas Trust Credit Union to provide more recognition
within the areas served across the group’s
field of membership.
Today, Texas Trust Credit Union serves anyone
who lives or works in Tarrant, Dallas,
Henderson Counties and parts of Ellis and
Johnson. In addition, relatives of any existing
member can join Texas Trust. The Credit Union
has expanded to six convenient locations
including offices in Mansfield, Cedar Hill,
Arlington East and Arlington West, Grand
Prairie, and Athens.
Texas Trust is actively involved in the community
and sponsors the Grand Prairie
Chamber of Commerce, Grand Prairie ISD
Foundation, JROTC at Grand Prairie High
School, Brighter Tomorrows, YMCA in Grand
Prairie and other local organizations.
For additional information on Texas Trust
Credit Union, visit www.TexasTrustCU.org.
❖
Below: Vought retirees and Grand
Prairie community leaders share in
the unveiling of the Heritage Corner
at the Texas Trust branch in Grand
Prairie in February 2006. This
display proudly shows the history of
Vought Aircraft and the relationship
with the Credit Union.
Sharing the Heritage ✦ 63

JACKSON
VENDING
SUPPLY, INC.
PRODUCT
SALES, INC.
In 1947, at the close of World War II, Vernon
Jackson was working at North American, an
aircraft factory located in Grand Prairie, Texas.
Wanting to find his own business, he decided to
start Jackson Vending Supply after visiting with a
co-worker who was in the same kind of business.
With his wife Ruthe, and a $1,600 loan from
the First National Bank of Grand Prairie, Vernon
purchased 100 one-cent machines on an
established route in Mississippi. Vernon
personally serviced these machines while
increasing the number of locations and buying
more machines.
The company continued to grow through
the years. By expanding the product line to
include candy, gum, and toys sales grew.
Regional and national chain accounts were
added. Acquisitions of Dudley Vending
STORE
SERVICE, INC.
❖
Vernon and Ruthe Jackson.
COURTESY OF BRYAN PHOTOGRAPHY.
64 ✦ HISTORIC GRAND PRAIRIE

Company in 1975 and Waller Vending in 1980
stretched the operations to Kentucky, Tennessee
and Georgia.
In 1985 the addition of a regional retailer,
that eventually became the largest in the world,
expanded the operation even farther. Sixty years
later, his company has become one of the largest
of its kind in the country as it continues to
provide bulk and amusement vending in twelve
states across the southern United States, from
Alabama to California.
Jackson Vending Supply, Inc. eventually
became a “family business” with three
generations involved in the day to day business
operations. A son-in-law, Dan Clemson and
daughter Jorja Jackson Clemson, joined the
business in 1971 and purchased a part of it in
1986, with the remainder of the business
purchased in 1998. The company name was
changed to Product Sales, Inc., for the wholesale
operation, and Store Service, Inc., for vending
services. And these days, Jorja is president of
Store Service, Inc., Dan’s son Spencer, the
grandson of the original owners, oversees the
vending services and is president of Product
Sales, Inc. Joel Garcia, Dan’s son-in-law,
manages the wholesales and accounting
for all companies. Leanna Clemson Garcia is
responsible for human resources, insurance, and
Texas DOT reporting.
Vernon and Ruthe have always found time to
support local civic organizations and charities.
Vernon spent twenty-two years on the city’s
Community Renewal Committee and fifteen
years on the Grand Prairie Independent School
District school board. Ruthe has served
21 years on the City Council and served 18
years on the Dallas County School Board.
Continuing in a tradition of giving back to
the community, Product Sales, Inc. and Store
Service, Inc. support many local charities.
Vernon, Dan, and Spencer are all members of
the Grand Prairie Rotary Club. Dan has served
terms on the School Board, Chamber of
Commerce, and YMCA. Spencer has served on
the board of the Chamber of Commerce and Joel
is involved in the youth sports programs.
For fifteen years a scholarship was given in
Vernon Jackson’s name to graduating high
school seniors that were children or
grandchildren of associates totaling $25,000.
For more information, please visit Product Sales,
Inc., and Store Service, Inc., on the Internet at
www.productsales.com and www.storeservice.com.
❖
The Jackson Family.
COURTESY OF BRYAN PHOTOGRAPHY.
Sharing the Heritage ✦ 65

BANCROFT
AND SONS
TRANSPORTATION,
INC.
❖
Above: Charles and Lena Bancroft.
Below: Bancroft and Sons, 1969.
Bancroft and Sons Transportation, Inc.
started small in 1969 but today have grown to
become a forty-eight-state Common and
Contract Carrier, and Broker, transporting
tractor trailer loads of U.S. Mail coast to
coast. The story began in 1968 when
Charles Curtis Bancroft worked as a
freight agent for Zan Top Airline’s at the
Naval Air Station in Dallas, Texas that shipped
freight for the G.S.A. (General Services
Administration) depot in Fort Worth. Through
business dealings with the depot’s
transportation officer, Charles learned of the
need for local cartage trucking service in the
Dallas/Fort Worth area.
In 1968, Charles was the successful
bidder on a year-long contract for hauling
freight to all government and military
installations in the Dallas/Fort Worth
area. Without having the required authority
and insurances, Charles made a business
decision to partner with Orville Jackson, owner
of Jackson Transfer and Cartage for a limited
one-year partnership. The following year,
Charles went it alone and formed B & S
Transportation, continuing his pursuit of more
G.S.A. contracts.
That same year, Charles and his wife, Lena,
rented a Good Luck Oil service station at 2414
East Main Street in Grand Prairie to park their
first trucks while contracting with the G.S.A.
Charles drove a tractor-trailer making deliveries
to military and government installations
throughout the Dallas/Fort Worth area, while
Lena answered the twenty-four-hour phone and
ran the office while raising their four boys—
Charles Jr., Howard, Billy, and JD. In 1972, they
moved the business to 817 South Great
Southwest Parkway.
66 ✦ HISTORIC GRAND PRAIRIE

In 1973, just four years after becoming
independent, Charles was successful in bidding
on his first U.S. Mail contract and was awarded
the Dallas-Wichita Falls mail route. Little did he
know at that time that many years later he
would be among the southwest area’s prime
Postal Contractors!
In 1980 during the early years of trucking
deregulation and with the introduction of EX part
07, which granted authority to move government
freight within the state of Texas by railroad,
Charles expanded his operations. He rented his
first warehouse and began consolidating and
staging G.S.A. less than truckload freight. At first,
he focused on moving loads of freight by rail to
San Antonio, but later moved on into New
Orleans and Warner Robins, Georgia.
In 1982, Charles moved the business to 1609
109th Street, acquired his second U.S. Mail
contract and was awarded the Dallas-Lake
Charles, Louisiana route. 1984 brought the
successful bidding on his third U.S. Mail route
from Dallas to Albuquerque, New Mexico. He
received his forty-eighth State Common Carrier
Authority in 1986, allowing him to transport
General Commodities Freight by tractor-trailer
all over the United States. By 1989, Charles had
over thirty trucks hauling his three U.S. Mail
contracts and his consolidated G.S.A. freight to
over nine different states. It was also at this
point that all four sons were active in the
business and Bancroft and Sons Transportation,
Inc. had truly become a family business.
In 1992 the company gave up its G.S.A.
business and dedicated itself to hauling brokered
freight and U.S. Mail and by 2001 the company
had nearly eighty trucks mostly hauling general
freight. But by year’s end, due to the terrorist
attacks on the New York Twin Towers, the U.S.
Postal Service stopped flying most of the mail by
air and put it on dedicated truck contracts. As a
result, Bancroft and Sons Transportation, Inc.
converted every piece of equipment to hauling
U.S. Mail within a matter of months.
By 2007 the company had more than 130
trucks hauling U.S. Mail and Mail equipment.
Since 1996 the company headquarters has been
located at 3390 High Prairie Road, where Charles
purchased fifteen acres and built a terminal.
For more information about Bancroft and
Sons Transportation, Inc., visit their website at
www.bancroftandsons.com.
❖
Bancroft and Sons Transportation,
Inc., today.
Sharing the Heritage ✦ 67

LOCKHEED
MARTIN
MISSILES AND
FIRE CONTROL
❖
Above: A dual launch of the Lance
Missile at White Sands Missile Range,
New Mexico.
Below: Lockheed Martin Missiles and
Fire Control, Grand Prairie, Texas.
Lockheed Martin Missiles and Fire
Control is a business unit of Lockheed
Martin Corporation, listed on the New
York Stock Exchange as LMT, and was
created to protect the country’s
Warfighters and ensure their safety by
providing superior weapon systems
and sensors.
Lockheed Martin Missiles and Fire
Control was originally founded by the
Vought Corporation, which was created
in 1917 by Chance Milton Vought, a
contemporary of the Wright brothers. Its
history includes major contributions in
missiles, beginning with the development
of the U.S. Navy’s Regulus I in 1947. The
Regulus, a jet-powered guided missile,
led the way for later sea-launched cruise
missiles and was followed by Regulus II.
In 1961, Chance Vought Corporation
merged with Ling-Temco Electronics to
become Ling-Temco-Vought, Inc. The company
name was abbreviated LTV. In the mid-1960s,
LTV developed the Lance missile for the U.S.
Army. After its first delivery in 1972, Lance was
deployed in Europe and South Korea and with
allied armed forces.
The technology and expertise developed by
the company on Lance helped it move forward
into the market for today’s battlefield missile
and rocket systems. The division went through
several name changes as part of the LTV family,
finally ending up as the Missiles Division of LTV
Aerospace and Defense Company.
Loral Corporation acquired the Missiles
Division of LTV in August of 1992 and named it
Loral Vought Systems. In April of 1996,
68 ✦ HISTORIC GRAND PRAIRIE

Lockheed Martin acquired the majority of
defense assets of Loral Corporation, and named
the business Lockheed Martin Vought Systems.
Subsequently, Lockheed Martin combined its
various missile-related businesses, including
Lockheed Martin Electronics and Missiles in
Orlando, Florida, a former Martin-Marietta
business, into a single entity and named it
Lockheed Martin Missiles and Fire Control.
Today, Lockheed Martin Missiles and Fire
Control develops, manufactures and supports
advanced combat systems and missile, rocket
and space systems. The company is Lockheed
Martin Corporation’s lead business unit for
research, development and production of
electro-optics and smart munitions systems, and
is a pioneer in the field of versatile, high-performance
missile and rocket technology and
an important contributor to the nation’s
space efforts.
Empowered by the company’s vision to be
the most respected global leader in every market
and community they serve through the pride,
commitment and power of enterprising people,
Lockheed Martin Missiles and Fire Control
employs more than 10,000 individuals around
the world. The local Dallas/Fort Worth operation
employs approximately 2,700 indiviudals.
Lockheed Martin Corporation employs more
than 140,000 around the globe.
While Lockheed Martin Corporation is
headquartered in Bethesda, Maryland,
Lockheed Martin Missiles and Fire Control
is headquartered in Grand Prairie, with major
operations in Orlando and Ocala, Florida; Troy,
Alabama; Horizon City and Lufkin, Texas;
Camden, Arkansas; Chelmsford, Massachusetts;
Littleton, Colorado; Archbald, Pennsylvania;
Sunnyvale and Santa Barbara, California; and
Ampthill, Bedfordshire in the United Kingdom.
Additional information is available on the
Internet at www.lmco.com.
❖
Above: The combat-proven
PAC -3 Missile.
Below: Regulus I Missile.
Sharing the Heritage ✦ 69

DR. DALE
WHITCOMB
❖
Right: Joyce Suter Whitcomb, who
penned this tribute to her husband, is
a prolific author. In Before the First
Snow Falls, her seventh book of
poetry, Joyce shares her love of family,
faith, and nature.
Below: Dr. Dale Whitcomb.
Dr. Dale Whitcomb and his family
came to Grand Prairie in the fall of 1959
after completing his military obligation
in the United States Army. Dr. Dale was
a Texan raised in Corpus Christi, so
coming home to Texas was always his
plan. He went into practice with Dr.
Don Miller at the Miller Hospital at
1005 Southwest Third Street. When Dr.
Miller developed health problems and
returned to California, Dr. Dale and his
wife, Joyce, purchased the hospital,
renamed it Whitcomb Memorial in
honor of his grandfather who had also
been in the medical profession, and thus
began a thirty-five year career as a
practicing physician in the city of
Grand Prairie.
Whitcomb Memorial was a
full service hospital, offering surgery,
OB-GYN, internal medicine, emergency
and diagnostic services. At the time of
his death, it was reported that Dr. Dale
had delivered more than two thousand
babies. Surgeons and other specialists
from Dallas were on staff and enjoyed
coming to the hospital to help out
when needed. The hospital also had
excellent in-house laboratory facilities
run by Weldon Belz, who was a
top-notch lab and Xray technician.
Patients appreciated getting lab results
in a timely manner, often during
their initial visit. Dr. Dale became
known for his diagnostic skills and
on more than one occasion sent
a particularly puzzling case for
confirmation to Southwestern Medical
School in Dallas and the school looked
forward to these rare cases with
great interest.
Dr. Dale and Joyce were active in the
Seventh-day Adventist Church where
Dr. Dale was an elder and Joyce directed
the choir for forty years. Dr. Dale served
on the city Crime Commission and the
Narcotic Board. Joyce was active in
Story League, Music Club, the local
symphony and Nottingham Neighbors
where she was named Woman of the
Year in 1996.
70 ✦ HISTORIC GRAND PRAIRIE

The Whitcombs raised three children, two
boys and a girl. The children did odd jobs
around the hospital during the summers and all
three developed a keen interest in medicine.
After graduating from Loma Linda School of
Medicine, their father’s alma mater, both Craig
and Larry returned to Grand Prairie and were
able to practice for a short time with their father,
Craig as a family physician and Larry as a
surgeon. Daughter Karen graduated from Loma
Linda University School of Allied Health as a
physical therapist and opened Whitcomb
Physical Therapy in 1986.
By the late eighties and early nineties, the era
of small hospitals in Texas was coming to a close
due to the demands of Medicare, insurance and
third party interference. All over Texas,
communities who had relied on their local
hospitals were forced to seek help in the cities as
it became financially impossible to keep the
small hospitals open. It was a sad day for the
Whitcomb family when the decision was made
to close the hospital and many tears were shed.
Dr. Dale said it was like losing a limb; part of
him would always be missing. The hospital
building and surrounding land was sold to
Town Hall Estates, an assisted living and senior
care facility. It was good to know that the
citizens of Grand Prairie would continue to be
cared for by friends of the Whitcomb family.
On June 24, 1995, Dr. Dale died very
suddenly from a massive brain hemorrhage.
After his funeral in Grand Prairie, his family
transported his body to the Whitcomb family
burial plot in the little town of Riviera, Texas.
This cemetery has been designated a state
historical site, and is not far from the King
Ranch where he spent so many happy times
with his father and his children, hunting and
fishing in the nearby gulf waters. In death, he
continued to care for others; his donated body
parts provided healing to fifty-one persons,
mostly burn patients as well as others. He would
have been pleased and his family is comforted to
know that his good works live on, improving
the lives of so many.
The three Whitcomb children have continued
their father’s legacy of service. Dr. Craig owns and
operates the Whitcomb Clinic, Dr. Larry lives in
Grand Prairie and practices in Fort Worth, Karen
and her husband live in the Whitcomb family
home with Joyce, who divides her time between
Grand Prairie and her beloved Black Hills and
Badlands in South Dakota where she was born and
raised. The Whitcomb family is grateful for the
opportunity they have had to serve the people of
Grand Prairie and hope to continue doing so for
years to come.
This profile is lovingly sponsored by
Karen Whitcomb.
❖
Craig, Joyce, Karen, Larry, and Dale
Whitcomb in 1957.
Sharing the Heritage ✦ 71

GUERRERO-
DEAN FUNERAL
HOMES, INC.
❖
Above: An artist rendering of the
building when it was constructed
in 1942.
Below: Originally founded in the late
1930s, the business was known as
L.O. Turner Funeral Home. The
building on East Main Street has been
home to many prominent funeral
families and directors for over
sixty years.
The funeral establishment, located at
500 East Main Street has the distinct
notoriety of being the first building in
Grand Prairie built exclusively as a funeral
home. The late L. O. Turner, a former
mayor, and his wife, Minnie Turner were
the original founders and builders.
Together, they served Grand Prairie as a
team, both being licensed as funeral
director and embalmer. While funeral
firms were owned and served by families, it
was very rare that a female be licensed as
an embalmer.
Built in 1942, the funeral home has
served Grand Prairie families for many
years. Families of World War II and
Vietnam servicemen killed in action recall
having funerals for these fallen veterans
in the funeral home chapel. Although it
has been a place of great sadness and grief,
many have found consolation and comfort in
the home-style atmosphere the original
founders envisioned.
Throughout almost seven decades, the
building has survived numerous changes in
occupants and ownership. From 1948
72 ✦ HISTORIC GRAND PRAIRIE

until 1955, various proprietors operated
from the facility, including Dudley Hughes
Funeral Home of Dallas and Hugh Moore
Funeral Home of Arlington. In 1965 the
name was changed to Southland Funeral
Home, which operated until relocating in
1970. The building remained vacant until 1984
when Joe Brown of Fort Worth bought the
property and renamed it Brown’s Grand Prairie
Funeral Home.
In February of 2001, the funeral home
was bought by another husband and wife
team of dual licensed funeral directors.
Mark Dean and Sylvia Guerrero-Dean have
refurbished and modernized the facility, and
continues the honorable tradition established by
the founders. The name was changed at that
time to Guerrero-Dean Funeral Home. The
original structure still stands, with minor
additions and updates.
With the many changes of occupants, the
mission of the funeral home has remained
the same. The goal of Guerrero-Dean
Funeral Home is to provide quality and
meaningful funerals for Grand Prairie
and neighboring communities. Guerrero-Dean
does this by providing professional service with
dignity, pride and a personal touch. Our
belief is that each individual deserves a
respectable disposition, regardless of race, age
or religion.
Our philosophy is to care for your family as
we would care for our own. We strive to
maintain the reputation we as individuals have
worked for more than a quarter a century to
earn. We do this be being honest and sensitive,
caring for the need of each family personally. We
commit to do this each and every time,
regardless of circumstances.
After more than sixty-five years, different
owners, residents and occupants, the service
remains consistent and through our front
doors has walked thousands of families,
shedding countless tears. In a time when funeral
homes and services are becoming
institutionalized, we are proud to follow the
examples of those before us, and continue the
proud tradition of caring.
❖
Guerrero-Dean Funeral Homes
in 2002.
Sharing the Heritage ✦ 73

GRAND PRAIRIE
SPORTS
FACILITIES
DEVELOPMENT
CORPORATION
❖
Above: Uptown Theater.
Right: The Breeders’ Cup.
After citizens approved a half-cent sales tax for
a Class One Thoroughbred Racetrack in 1992, the
city of Grand Prairie formed the Grand Prairie
Sports Facilities Development Corporation Inc. to
oversee the project.
Now the Sports Corporation, receiving one
percent of defined revenues from Lone Star Park at
Grand Prairie, allots a portion of its funds to assist
the City on a special project each year, such as the
construction of the Bowles Life Center in 2005 and
the restoration of the Uptown Theater in 2006.
Comprised of seven board members (four
city council members and three Grand Prairie
citizens), the Sports Corporation is legally,
financially and administratively autonomous
from the city of Grand Prairie.
The city levied the half cent sales tax for the
racetrack beginning April 1, 1993 with the first
proceeds to the Sports Corporation beginning
in June 1993.
On September 15, 1995, the Sports
Corporation and Lone Star Park entered into a
74 ✦ HISTORIC GRAND PRAIRIE

master agreement for the development of the
racetrack, and in 1995 it was agreed that the Sports
Corporation would own the land and facilities,
which would be leased and operated by Lone Star
Park for thirty years with a purchase option at the
end of the lease. The track began construction in
1995, completing the Post Time Pavilion in 1996
and the remainder of the facility in 1997.
The Sports Corporation has given the City
contributions ranging from $100,000 to $2
million for: Fire Station Number 9 (1998), Betty
Warmack Branch Library (1999), Ruthe Jackson
Center (2000), Prairie Paws Adoption Center
(2001), land for the Grand Prairie Memorial
Gardens and Mausoleum (2002), Veteran’s
Memorial (2004), Bowles Life Center (2005)
and the Uptown Theater (2006). It also
contributed $2.9 million toward racetrack
improvements for Breeder’s Cup in 2004.
Current officers are Charles England,
president; Wayne Hanks, vice president; Bryan
Arnold, secretary; Tannie Camarata, treasurer;
Curtis Anderson; Ruthe Jackson; Ron Jensen;
and Jim Swafford.
❖
Clockwise from top, left:
Bowles Life Center.
Ruthe Jackson Center.
Warmack Public Library.
Veteran’s Memorial.
Sharing the Heritage ✦ 75

DON JUAN’S
ROMANTIC
MEXICAN FOOD
❖
Above: Loyal and many life-long
customers enjoyed the fortieth
anniversary celebration at Don Juan’s
in 2006
Below: Don Juan’s Romantic Mexican
Food is located at 325 East Main
Street in Grand Prairie.
Opened by Don Chiavario in
September of 1966, Don Juan’s
Romantic Mexican Food debuted in
Grand Prairie when the idea of “fast
food” was uncommon, and Mexican fast
food was non-existent! Moving from
California where he had seen this same
type of business prosper, Chiavario
opened his restaurant in a building that
had formerly been a “Griddle System,” a
popular diner in the 1950s and early
’60s, within proximity to the aircraft plant, sure
to provide lunch to thousands of hungry
customers. Chiavario remodeled the building to
suit his needs doing most of the design and
actual construction work himself.
The business prospered and, eventually,
Chiavario returned to California and arranged for
the restaurant to be managed by several different
people over the next several years before finally
selling the business to two employees in 1975.
One of the employees was Jim Parker. This
partnership existed for several years before Jim
bought out the other. Jim operated the restaurant
until 1989, when his younger brother, John, took
over the reins, and continues to operate it today.
The brothers started working part-time for Don
Juan’s Romantic Mexican Food while they were
both still in high school.
Today, if you walk through the doors of Don
Juan’s Romantic Mexican Food restaurant, you
would find that very little has changed, except for
the success it has enjoyed and the number of
people it continues to add to its list of satisfied
customers. Cooking with recipes that Chiavario
perfected all those years ago, the beans and meat
are still cooked fresh everyday, and chili, burrito
sauce, hot sauce, guacamole, and almost
everything else is still made from scratch each day.
Now one of the oldest restaurants in Grand
Prairie, Don Juan’s Romantic Mexican Food
celebrated its fortieth anniversary with a big
celebration party—prices were even rolled back
to 1966 for one day, while two lucky customers
won free tacos for one year. Customers lined up
around the building and down the street, making
it one of the busiest days ever for Don Juan’s.
Today, the historic restaurant continues to pride
itself on striving to always provide good food and
service at reasonable prices in a clean and pleasant
atmosphere. Visit the restaurant on the web for a
look at their delicious menu items and hours of
operation at www.donjuans-texmex.com.
“Thanks to all our customers for your past
and continued patronage!”
76 ✦ HISTORIC GRAND PRAIRIE

The Great Southwest Industrial District
Association (GSW Association) is a professional
organization dedicated to the promotion and
maintenance of the Great Southwest Industrial
Park in the cities of Arlington and Grand Prairie.
GSW Association’s current focus is to be a strong
voice for its members during the I-30 corridor,
Highway 161, and Highway 360 planning and
reconstruction phases. Its members take full
advantage of their membership by utilizing the
opportunities provided by GSW Association,
such as networking socials, educational
luncheons, e-mail notifications on events within
the park, annual golf tournament fundraiser,
website, and most important—liaison to the city
municipalities that encompass and regulate the
GSW Industrial Park.
In the late 1950s, Angus Wynne looked out
over an eight-thousand-acre ranch in Grand
Prairie, immediately northeast of Arlington, and
envisioned what was to the nation’s largest
master-planned business park. Wynne and his
staff set out to plan and implement a set of
standards that would be the envy of future
developers throughout the country. Stringent
deed restrictions, designated sign criteria,
architecture review committees, and ongoing
control of these issues by a concerned property
owners association known as the Great
Southwest Association helped to assure major
corporations that the GSW Industrial Park
would set the standard for industrial
development. Indeed, from the first deals in
those early days to the current development
today, the GSW Industrial area has been an
unqualified success.
The group enjoyed a rebirth in 1998 as the
GSW Industrial Park received new life due to
not only the involvement of core veteran real
estate owners and players, but the owners,
tenants, investors, and others whose livelihood
depends on the success of GSW Industrial Park.
And, with the innovative idea of making
nineteen personalized monuments available to
owners and long-time tenants of the Park to be
placed at major entrances to the District,
awareness of the Association and overall district
is improved.
For inquiries regarding membership or to
learn more about the Great Southwest Industrial
District Association, please visit the company on
the Internet at www.gswida.org.
GREAT
SOUTHWEST
INDUSTRIAL
DISTRICT
ASSOCIATION
Sharing the Heritage ✦ 77

FIRST BAPTIST
CHURCH
In June of 1880, a brush arbor meeting was
held to reach out to the growing community of
Grand Prairie and First Baptist Church was
formed. J.F. Elder was the new church’s first
pastor and a one room, wood-frame structure
was built at the corner of what is now Main and
Northeast Second Street. God blessed the
church and its membership grew to 250 by
1920. By 1950, membership had reached
nearly 2000.
As the church grew, so did the need for
facilities. A small sanctuary had replaced the
former one room building, but it burned in
1929, so construction of a three story brick
facility was begun. During the depression, the
church even had to sell the parsonage to pay
building debts in those difficult days. But God
was faithful and the church was able to restart
work on that building in 1938.
In 1950 the sanctuary was built, followed by
a three story education building in 1955, a
children’s building in 1963, a Family Life Center
in 1984, a new children’s wing and sanctuary
renovation in 1990. In 2000 the church
undertook a facility renovation and built the
Founder’s Plaza on Main Street—a $1.1 million
project fully paid for in 2002.
The church has only had four pastors since
1948. Reverend James Taylor served from 1948
to 1956; Dr. J.H. Wright served from 1957 to
1977; Dr. Jerry Poteet served from 1978 to 1998
and Dr. Bill Skaar has served since 1999.
Over the years, First Baptist has either
directly started or jointly helped to start nearly
every other Southern Baptist church in Grand
Prairie. The church has strong, ongoing
ministries for all ages, touches thousands locally
through ministries such as Upward Basketball
and a food pantry and sends mission teams out
regularly involving youth to Senior Adults.
Today, First Baptist Church remains
dedicated to glorifying God and working with
Him as He builds His Kingdom. The church
continues to look to the future and members
have voted to seek land in the residential center
of the city south of Highway 303 and along the
new Highway 161 corridor. The history of First
Baptist has been a rich one, but the membership
believes that the best is yet to be! Additional
information may be found at www.fbcgp.com.
78 ✦ HISTORIC GRAND PRAIRIE

The history of Grand Prairie is much like the
history of any city; it is a mixture of both legend
and indelible fact. The history of the schools that
have provided the education for thousands of
students over the past 100 years is no different.
The Grand Prairie Independent School District is
the result of a century of dedicated people who
have cared enough about education to mold one
of the finest school systems in the state.
It was voted into existence on July 5, 1902,
and, according to Marvin Vail, the first school in
Grand Prairie was located near the corner of
Main Street and Northwest Second Street.
Around 1895 the school was moved near 202
East Main Street.
In June 1905 a two-story brick building was
constructed at 214 West College Street.
Elementary classes were taught on the first floor
and secondary classes were taught on the second
floor. In 1913 a bond was passed for the
construction of an auditorium, library, bookroom,
and four additional classrooms.
Athletics saw its earliest beginnings in the
1920s. In 1924, the first Grand Prairie High
School football team was led by Coach Ben
Grimes. It is said that Coach Grimes created
Grand Prairie High’s mascot, the Gopher, as in
“first and ten, go for it again.”
Through the 1940s, many students around
the state left their families and educations to join
in the war effort. In 2001 the State of Texas
passed legislation that allowed these students to
receive the diplomas they would have received
had they remained in school. During the war
years, the district added Crockett and Travis
Elementary Schools, and Lee and Jefferson
Junior High Schools.
Bowie Elementary School and Grand Prairie
High School were added in 1951 (the Gopher
Bowl—a unique football facility built in a bowl was
added to the campus in 1956), Houston and Lamar
Elementary Schools in 1952, Austin Elementary
School in 1953, Shady Grove in 1954 and Milam
Elementary School in 1955. Florence Hill became
the eighth GPISD elementary school in 1959.
To address the ever-growing student population,
Adams Junior High was added in 1962,
while Jackson Junior High was built in 1966.
The Dalworth School, Grand Prairie’s African-
American school was integrated into the District
in 1966. Also constructed in 1966 was Bonham
Elementary School, followed in 1969 by
Johnson Elementary School. South Grand
Prairie High School began in 1969.
Eisenhower Elementary School was added in
1970 and was followed by the completed South
Grand Prairie High School building in 1971.
Rayburn Elementary School was added in 1972
and Zavala Elementary School in 1977.
Junior high schools added in the 1980s
included Truman in 1980 and Kennedy in 1985.
Elementary schools included Dickinson in 1981,
the new Fannin Elementary School in 1984, and
Garner in 1986.
The final decade of the twentieth century saw
the building of the new Florence Hill Elementary
School. In 1997 the District named the two new
elementary schools after former Secretary of State
General Colin Powell and former first lady Barbara
Bush who both attended dedications in their honor
in 1998. In 1999 the District opened a new elementary
school in the northeast section of the city
and named it after Hispanic icon Hector P. Garcia.
Ervin Whitt and Sallye Moore Elementary
Schools and Bill Arnold Middle School all
opened in 2002. The District also added ninthgrade
centers at each high school campus.
Following a bond election in 2003, the
District added Ronald Reagan Middle School,
Thurgood Marshall and Juan Seguin Elementary
Schools in 2004 and Mike Moseley Elementary
School (named after a former GPHS graduate
and current Air Force Chief of Staff) in 2007.
Significant growth forced the District back to
the voters in 2007 for the largest bond package
in District history—$222 million. As a result,
the District will welcome Hobbs Williams
Elementary in the fall of 2008 and a Career and
Technology Center in the fall of 2009.
Overseeing these projects is the District’s twentieth
Superintendent of Schools, Dr. Susan
Simpson. Prior to coming to the District in May
2007, Dr. Simpson was named the 2005
“Superintendent of the Year” in the State of Texas.
GRAND PRAIRIE
INDEPENDENT
SCHOOL
DISTRICT
❖
Above: South Grand Prairie
High School.
Below: Grand Prairie High School.
Sharing the Heritage ✦ 79

❖
Above: Students file in for classes at
Mountain View College’s west
entrance.
Below: Fountains flow and flags wave
at Mountain View College’s east
entrance.
MOUNTAIN VIEW COLLEGE
Mountain View College serves as a center of
learning for thousands of people in southwest
Dallas County and meets a broad range of
educational needs by providing a variety of
academic, technical, cultural, and recreational
programs. Traditional credit classes, as well as a
host of technical courses, including aviation,
welding, and computer-aided design and
drafting serve the diverse student population
well. Continuing education and contract
training programs can be tailored to meet the
needs of corporate and community clients.
Mountain View College officially opened in
the fall of 1970 on a site unique in primitive
beauty. Wild grasses, mesquite trees, various
species of wildflowers, numerous kinds of
wildlife, and a small streamlined with cedar,
willow, and elm trees that wound through the
site and tumbled over and through the
limestone canyon and shale outcroppings before
disappearing into the woods were the canvas on
which Mountain View College was painted.
Over the limestone canyon is where the long,
flat-roofed, matching limestone buildings took
shape, and it blended well into the natural
ambience of the terrain. Two enclosed walkways
now connect the east and the west complexes
with a beautiful view of the creek below.
Though Mountain View College opened as
scheduled, the first students studied in tents and
mobile buildings while the structure was being
completed. Rain and labor disputes had caused
the building to run behind schedule, but 2,060
people enrolled that first semester and endured
the sound of jackhammers outside their
classrooms until April of 1971, when the building
was officially completed at a cost of $12,323,007.
Senator John Tower gave the dedicatory address
on April 18, 1971, and the Southern Association
of Colleges and Schools accredited Mountain
View College on December 13, 1972.
With the passage of the $450-million bond
package in 2004, Mountain View College will
expand and update its performing arts facility,
science and allied health facility, and student
services and student life facility, and a new
sports and recreation complex.
For more details and information about
enrollment, visit www.mountainviewcollege.edu.
80 ✦ HISTORIC GRAND PRAIRIE

DAL-WORTH
FABRICATION,
INC.
After working for other shops building
butane tanks, W.G. Brumit decided to strike out
on his own in August 1944 and opened his
shop, Dal-Worth Tank Company, at 2750 Main
Street with several other men. Over time,
Brumit bought additional property and added to
the original plant and the business grew to
include tank trucks and custom chemical
vessels. Eventually the decision was made to
concentrate solely on custom work and today,
Dal-Worth Fabrication, Inc. builds steel
pressure vessels for chemicals, air and water.
It became a joke that if you were a Brumit,
you would eventually work for Dal-Worth.
W.G.’s wife, MayBelle, their son, Dewey, his
brother, M.W., son-in-law, Gene Talbot and
grandson, W.E. Talbot have all been on the
employee roster. W.G. and MayBelle’s daughter
Betty serves today as CEO of the company,
her husband Gene is president, their son
W.E. is Controller and Chief Engineer, and
their daughter Sharon Holland is Assistant
Controller. Several nephews have also been a
part of the business. W.E.’s son, Patrick, has now
joined the company as the fourth generation to
represent Dal-Worth Fabrication, Inc.—it is
truly a family business.
Although Dal-Worth Fabrication, Inc. has had
a name change and the one change of CEO’s as
W.G. retired, one thing that remained the same is
the location. The original site that was not within
city limits when it opened over sixty years ago is
the same 65,000 square feet, ten acre plot where
the business offices and manufactures its
product today. With an international customer
base, the business currently employs twenty
people. However, this is a business that
fluctuates with the oil patch, so there have been
ups and downs over the years. At various times
throughout Dal-Worth history as many as fifty
employees have been required.
Dal-Worth Fabrication, Inc. takes pride in
supporting the local Chamber of Commerce,
Brighter Tomorrows, Texas Pythian Children’s
Home and Guest House and working with
Life Line.
For more information about the company,
visit www.dal-worthfabrication.com.
❖
Above: Aerial view of the 65,000
square foot business and
manufacturing plant.
Below: Founder W. G. Brumit.
Sharing the Heritage ✦ 81

GRAND PRAIRIE
CHAMBER OF
COMMERCE
Signed by charter on May 24,
1945, the Grand Prairie Chamber of
Commerce has for more than sixty
years lived out its mission to promote,
strengthen, and expand the business
community of Grand Prairie.
Simply put, the Grand Prairie
Chamber of Commerce has a way of
bringing the community together. In
the early days, volunteers and donors
worked together to construct the
group’s first building at 305 West
Main Street for $15,000, and the first
Chamber staff moved in debt-free.
During the 1970s when participation
and leadership in the Chamber
showed a decline, Harry King rallied
the members by motioning to
discontinue the organization. He
got the reaction he’d hoped for—
one of appall—and used that emotion
as the impetus to spark new energy
and a determined commitment
from members.
Prior to the early 1970s when
women were finally allowed to be Chamber
members, Ruthe Jackson, who in 1982 became
the first woman Chairman of the Board, and
others, participated in a Women’s Division to
support the efforts of the Chamber.
During the 1980s, the board members
agreed on the site for a new building at 900
Conover Drive, and in 2004 that site was
expanded with more land and parking. The
membership of the Chamber continues to
work to maintain a positive business
environment both in facilities and the
foundation of its membership.
The current and future goal for the Grand
Prairie Chamber of Commerce is to continue to
grow to become a stronger voice for business in
local, state and national legislation. The
Chamber provides avenues for businesses to
market themselves, as well as assist each other
through networking and mentoring. The
Chamber is also involved in encouraging
participation of the for-profit community in
philanthropic endeavors, such as the
organization of volunteers and food for
emergency shelters provided for victims during
2005’s hurricanes, Katrina and Rita.
The member businesses, volunteers and
board members over the last sixty years have
provided a phenomenal history for this
organization’s future to build upon.
For more information about the Grand
Prairie Chamber of Commerce, please visit
www.grandprairiechamber.org.
82 ✦ HISTORIC GRAND PRAIRIE

Metroplex Bail Bonds opened its
doors in June of 1977. Herman and
Sheila Herndon had originally
founded the company as a
collection agency when a
Bondsman interested in establishing
an office in the Grand Prairie area
approached Herman. Herman was
interested in the idea; decided he
liked the business, and was soon
granted his license.
Metroplex Bail Bonds provides
an honest and dependable service
to the residents of Grand Prairie
and surrounding cities and does
so without passing judgment, in
an effort to assist families in need
and help to steer them in the
right direction.
Celebrating thirty years in
business in 2007, the company is
still owned and operated by the
Herndon Family. Herman and
Sheila’s nephew, Chris Swadley,
joined the group in the early 1980s
and the Herndon’s children began working for
the company in 1993. Jared ran the Pawn Shop
and Monnica and Chance now run the bond
office. Four of the current ten employees are
members of the Herndon Family.
Although bail bonds are not something the
average person thinks they’ll ever need, Metroplex
Bail Bonds has seen its fair share of not only
average citizens, but also notorious figures. Fidel
Castro, Jr. was once bonded out by Metroplex Bail
Bonds and the company did not realize who he
was until the FBI showed up on the company’s
doorstep requesting a copy of his files.
Whether subsidizing community efforts by
making certain that people go to court and pay
their fines or the more direct avenue of
volunteering to local and national charities,
Metroplex Bail Bonds is invested in the life and
support of the surrounding community. The
company has sponsored major events and
associations including The Wrangler Association
and its annual Western Day Rodeo and Parade,
Special Olympics, Rotary and Lions Clubs,
Chamber of Commerce, Better Business Bureau,
P.A.L. of Texas and Toys for Tots.
Resting on one city block of Grand Prairie,
Metroplex Bail Bonds is located at 1601 West
Jefferson Street.
METROPLEX
BAIL BONDS
❖
Above: Herman Herndon.
Below: Sheila Herndon.
Sharing the Heritage ✦ 83

ST. JOHN
BAPTIST
CHURCH
❖
Above: Pastor Denny Davis, 2007.
Below: St. John Church locations.
God smiled on the second Sunday in July of
1921 when a small group of thirteen inspired
Christians formed a fellowship in the Dalworth
community from which St. John Baptist Church
developed. The first pastor was Reverend W.
Scott, and he was followed by sixteen others
before the current pastor, Reverend Denny
Dwight Davis came to the congregation on
May 5, 1991. Under his pastorate, the church
has expanded to more than sixty ministries,
three morning worship services, and over
12,000 new members.
St. John Baptist Church has relocated
several times. From its humble begin-nings
in an old store building on Spikes Street to
an army chapel at 2133 Spikes Street, St. John
Baptist Church has now grown to three
campuses. In 2000 the main campus at
1701 West Jefferson Street completed, debt-free,
a capital stewardship program/two-phased
building expansion project designed to meet the
needs of the whole person.
In October of 1999, a second location, the St.
John “North Family Fellowship” was established
and began meeting at the Hilton Hotel in
Grapevine, Texas. About the same time, a group
of Christians hosting an in-home Bible study
with the intention of planting a church along
the 121 corridor chose to merge with St. John’s
new location.
Shortly thereafter, the St. John North Family
Fellowship Church began meeting at the DFW
Marriott in Irving, Texas. After moving again in
2000 to a more permanent location in a
warehouse building located in Southlake, Texas,
the north location opened the doors to its
permanent location at 800 South Kimball
Avenue in December 2007.
The church began a third worship location
on Palm Sunday of 2003 at NextStage City
Auditorium (now NOKIA Theater) located at
1001 Performance Place in Grand Prairie to
better serve the overflow crowds at the
“Corporate Worship Center” in Grand Prairie.
Plans are in the works to build the “Faith
Arena,” which will be the permanent home for
the third location.
St. John Baptist Church H.O.P.E (Helping
Others Prepare for Eternity) Center, birthed out
of the Hurricane Katrina relief effort, has
become an ongoing source of relief for the
community and raises a social consciousness in
areas of political relevance.
For more information, please visit St. John
Baptist Church on the web at www.sjbcfamily.com.
84 ✦ HISTORIC GRAND PRAIRIE

REBCO
INVESTMENT
COMPANY
In 1953, thirty-one year old Richard “Dick”
Bredeson moved from Oak Cliffs to Grand Prairie
and built a Drive-In in Tarrant County on leased
land at 2301 West Jefferson on the Tarrant side of
the county line. It was this simple business
venture that lead to REBCO Investment
Company. The success of the Drive-In, which
later was named “Martin’s Drive-In” thanks to the
donation of a street sign and car canopy bearing
the name of a business that had burned in a fire
in Arlington, actually financed the opening of the
Ritz Club, which, in turn, financed the H.H.
Ballroom. Today, REBCO, which stands for
Richard E. Bredeson Co., is a partnership of four
daughters and Dick’s late wife, Jo.
When it was built in 1959, the 23,000 square
foot H.H. Ballroom was considered one of the
largest and most beautiful ballrooms in Texas
and the top artists of the day entertained there.
Still operating today at its original location, oldtimers
remember the Big Bands like Harry
James, Les Browns, Glen Miller Band, and many
more. Every Saturday night, H.H. Ballroom was
filled with beautiful music and cover charge was
only $5 per person.
At one time, REBCO had nearly eighty
employees and was the designer/contractor
of the following commercial real estate: Ano
Entertainment Centers, REBCO Vending Co.,
REBCO Manor Apts., REBCO Manufacturing
Co, REBCO Investing Co., a chain of
REBCO Cut-Rate Stores, owned American
Consumer Corp. and Southwest Real
Estate. A heart attack in 1992 required a
change of pace for Dick and REBCO sold
many of its properties and today, REBCO
primarily leases out and maintains its
commercial buildings.
Bredeson feels very thankful to several key
city offices and administrators in Grand Prairie,
such as the mayor, engineering department,
police department and Mr. Sutton, as well as
Grand Prairie State Bank and Grand Prairie
Savings and Loan for believing in his “wildest
dreams in the old days.”
REBCO donates to the Red Cross, Salvation
Army, and the Children’s Hospital. For more
information, please visit REBCO Investment
Company at 2474 Houston Street in Grand
Prairie, Texas 75050.
Sharing the Heritage ✦ 85

❖
HOPKINS
REALTORS/
BUILDERS
N.D. Hopkins, founder and owner of
Hopkins Realtors/Builders is shown
here with the Hugh Prather Award he
won in 1992 from the Home Builders
Association of Greater Dallas. This
award is given each year to a builder
member for outstanding community
service. N.D. also won the Masonic
Golden Trowel award in 1999 for
longtime outstanding service to the
Masonic Order. His office is located at
822 Fort Worth Street in Grand
Prairie, where it has been since 1975.
N.D. Hopkins moved to Grand
Prairie in 1958 while in the U.S.
Navy. He and wife Katie became
Realtors in 1963 with broker John
“Coach” Hill. Hill and Hopkins
were the first office tenants in the
new Midway National Bank (now
Grand Bank of Texas).
In 1967, N.D. began building
single family homes, and joined the
Home Builders Association in 1970.
In 1975, Hopkins Realtors/Builders
built the office they occupy today.
N.D. is a Certified Graduate Builder
and member of the Remodeler’s
Council and 50+ Housing Council
of the National Association of Home
Builders. He is a Life Director of the
Home Builders Association of
Greater Dallas, Texas Association of
Builders and NAHB. He was a
director of the Grand Prairie
Board of Realtors and was
president in 1974. He was a board
member of the Texas Association
of Realtors and National Association
of Realtors.
N.D. served on the Credit Committee
and Board of Directors, one year as president,
of the NAS Dallas Credit Union until they
merged with Navy Federal. He was president
of the Grand Prairie Host Lions Club in
2006-2007. He belongs to the Grand Prairie
Chamber of Commerce, and was on the
Building Board of Adjustments and Appeals and
the Board of Zoning Adjustments and Appeals
for Grand Prairie.
The family joined First Baptist Church
Grand Prairie in 1958 where N.D. is still a
member. He received his Master Mason degree
in 1961 and is a member of the Sam R.
Hamilton Lodge. From 1981-1999, the family
went to the Eastern Star Retirement Home at
Christmas, where N.D. dressed as Santa for
pictures with the residents.
N.D. and Katie spearheaded the restoration
of Goodwin cabin when it was relocated to
Cottonwood (now Jennifer McFalls) Park in the
1970s. For several years, representing the Board
of Realtors, N.D. served beans and cornbread at
the cabin during historic celebrations.
N.D. was married to Katie Stroud from 1951
until 1992. Katie left the business in 1992, but
remained active in the community until her
death in 2005. She was in the Board of Realtors,
Story League, and Chamber of Commerce
Women’s Division, serving as president of all
three organizations. She was in the Order of the
Eastern Star, and held many offices, including
Worthy Matron. She worked the MDA Telethon,
which became especially meaningful after she
became one of “Jerry’s Kids” herself in 2002.
N.D. married Betty Christenson in 1999.
Betty worked for Darrell Reesing, DDS. After he
retired, she worked for Janelle Bicknell, DDS.
All five Hopkins children have worked in the
business. Kathy was office manager 1988-1990.
Ron, Gary, and Tex all worked on the construction
crews during high school. In 1974, Ron rejoined
the company after graduating from Texas State
Technical College with a degree in Construction
Practices. Grandson Tice joined in 2000. Veronica
has been office manager since 1995.
Hopkins Realtors/Builders, “For Your Building
and Remodeling Needs,” call 972-264-4846.
86 ✦ HISTORIC GRAND PRAIRIE

TRADERS
VILLAGE
Traders Village in Grand Prairie opened in
1973 and is nationally known today as one of
the most-visited weekend flea markets and
festival complexes in Texas. It is spread over 120
acres and visitors will find more than 3,500
dealers every Saturday and Sunday from 8:00
a.m. until dusk. Over 3.5 million people
browse, buy, and trade in this open-air bargain
hunters’ paradise each year where on any given
weekend you can find tires and tools, army
surplus and electronics, comics and cards, crafts
and collectibles, silk plants and flowers, truck
accessories, jewelry, furniture, clothing, garage
sale bargains, and more!
From the days of the Trading Post in the Old
West until the present, making a “good deal” is
something that brings a smile to the buyer as
well as the seller. The vast array of goods and
services offered by Traders Village dealers gives
the general public an opportunity to pursue
those “good deals” in a state fair atmosphere
and, at the same time, provides an inexpensive
alternative for family outings.
Besides the great shopping there is always
something happening at Traders Village.
Festivals and special events abound all year long
with American Indian Pow Wows, BBQ
Cookoffs, Cajun Festivals, Auto Swap Meets,
and much more. And, when it comes to food
there are various specialty restaurants serving
freshly-made corn dogs, Texas-size burgers,
roasted corn-on-the-cob, oven-fresh pizza,
turkey legs, made to order Thai food, and the
famous Traders Village “Hot Link” all in a state
fair atmosphere.
Every weekend, the market becomes a city
within a city, complete with a top-notch RV
park, kiddie rides and games, ATM machines,
stroller and wheelchair rental, snack stands,
restaurants, mobile beverage carts, covered rest
areas, modern restrooms, and all types of special
amenities not found anywhere else. A day at
Traders Village offers the most affordable family
entertainment option available today.
Enjoy a visit to Traders Village at 2602
Mayfield Road and on the Internet at
www.tradersvillage.com.
Sharing the Heritage ✦ 87

DOUGLAS BRYAN
PHOTOGRAPHY,
INC.
Doug Bryan was just twenty-five years
old and working as a photographer in an
office out of his parent’s home when he received
a call from another photographer interested
in sharing some studio space on Main Street.
Doug leapt at the opportunity. Since then he
achieved his long-time goal of developing
Douglas Bryan Photography, Inc. into the area’s
leading high school senior portrait studio.
Though the other photographer left after only
six months, Doug eventually purchased the
building at 111 East Main and has remained
there ever since.
After opening the business in 1989, Doug
soon hired his first employee, Ann Hicks, who
was a long-time Grand Prairie resident. Two
years later in 1991, Amy (Russell) Nelson, a
Grand Prairie native, was hired. After Ann left in
1994, Amy became the office manager and now
fills such a vital role in the business that Doug
Bryan says, “I’ve often told people that if Amy
ever leaves, I’m leaving with her.”
With four current employees and work
always waiting to be done, it is hard to believe
there was ever a time when there was so little to
do that Doug decided to purchase a deck of
cards so that he and Amy would have something
to do to pass the time. That deck of cards is kept
at the studio as a reminder of the past.
One of the keys to success at Douglas Bryan
Photography is the unique guarantees offered to
the community. If a high school senior is
unhappy with their portrait taken by Doug, he
will not only refund their session fee, he will
even foot the bill for the sitting fee at
another studio up to $100. Families are offered
the “27 Pound Guarantee,” a
policy which states that if
any one person loses twentyseven
pounds or more within
twelve months of being
photographed, they may
come back for a new portrait
session and receive replacement
portraits at no charge.
And finally, Douglas Bryan
Photography has recently
implemented a long-overdue
client loyalty program,
which affords waiving of the
session fees if the client has
paid a session fee in the
previous three years.
Doug is invested in his
community as a life-long
member of the First
Presbyterian Church, a
member of the Grand Prairie
Chamber of Commerce, a
past President of the Grand
Prairie Metro Rotary Club
and on the Board of
Directors for the Grand
Prairie Boys and Girls Club.
For more information
about Douglas Bryan
Photography, Inc, please call
(972) 642-2842 or visit
www.DouglasBryan.com.
88 ✦ HISTORIC GRAND PRAIRIE

Grand Bank of Texas is a locally owned and
operated independent community bank serving
customers in Grand Prairie and the Dallas/Fort
Worth area with friendly, knowledgeable,
professional service and a wide range of products
and services designed to benefit your financial
needs. Grand Bank of Texas has three
conveniently located, full-service locations in
Grand Prairie. Each is staffed with professional
bankers who are there to take care of our most
important asset, our customers.
Grand Bank of Texas was originally chartered
in 1975 as National Bank of Grand Prairie. The
founding directors saw the need for a locally
owned and managed, independent bank to
serve the financial needs of the community
and area.
Soon Grand Bank of Texas vacated its
temporary quarters and built its own building at
2341 South Beltline Road in Grand Prairie, and
expanded that facility in 1984. That was also the
year current President and CEO Marshall Sutton
joined Grand Bank of Texas.
In 1993, Grand Bank of Texas changed its
charter from a national bank to a state bank to
better serve the needs of the community, and
opened its second location at 530 South Carrier
Parkway in the fall of 1999. In March of 2006,
the bank’s penetration in the metroplex grew
even greater with the opening of its third
location at 1322 North Beckley Avenue in Dallas.
Grand Bank of Texas officers and staff actively
participate in civic, not-for-profit, and charitable
organizations in the area. The Grand Prairie
Chamber of Commerce recognized Grand Bank
of Texas as its “Corporation of the Year” for 2000
at its annual community awards event. Several
officers have been nominated for, or received
prestigious Chamber of Commerce awards. Other
Officers serve on such boards as the Lone Star
Park Charitable Foundation, GPISD Education
Foundation, Grand Prairie Housing Finance
Corporation, Chamber of Commerce, Grand
Prairie YMCA, and Brighter Tomorrows Shelter
for victims of domestic violence and sexual
abuse, and many more.
Grand Bank of Texas is dedicated to
providing our business, professional, and
individual customers the highest level of
personal service, always striving to exceed
expectations. For additional information, please
visit www.grandbankoftexas.com.
GRAND BANK
OF TEXAS
Sharing the Heritage ✦ 89

DOT
COMMUNICATIONS
& ELECTRIC
SUPPLY, INC.
❖
Owner and President Dorothy Ortiz.
Dot Communications is a performance
driven company that invites you to “Experience
the Dot Difference” of a knowledgeable and
courteous staff dedicated to providing you, the
customer, the service that you deserve and
always treating you like the valued customer
that you are.
We distribute products from leading
manufacturers in the industry and provide
value added services designed specifically to
meet your needs. Let us take care of your
next project, including kitting, and “just in
time” delivery. Dot has a national presence
with distribution facilities in both Texas
and California.
Dot’s diversified customer base includes
ILECs, CLECs, IXCs, RBOCs, OEMs, OSP
contractors, and EF&I companies. Dot is
obligated to the customer to provide quality
products and solutions for Underground and
Aerial Construction, Network Distribution
Cable Management, and Premises Products in
the Telecommunications and Electrical
Industries at the best possible prices.
Dot Communications & Electrical Supply,
Inc. was founded in April 1997 in Cool, Texas.
Founder Dorothy Ortiz, with prior experience
in the telecommunications industry, working
with customers such as Southwestern Bell, GTE,
MCI and other telephone companies across
United States, knew that the market segment
needed a woman-owned minority
business to provide high quality value
added services.
A major contract with CapRock
Communications (provider of global
communications infrastructure, complete
with international teleports, network
operations centers was based in Dallas,
Texas) in 1999, led to the opening of
Dot’s Grand Prairie, Texas office. Within
six months, Dot’s revenue was $5 million.
By 2001, Dot’s revenue jumped to
$13 million, which led to the opening
of Dot’s California office in Paso
Robles, California.
The realignment of the telecommunications
industries in 2002 and
the subsequent loss of opportunities
caused Dot to adjust its market
strategies to diversify its customer base.
Dot, a Hispanic woman-owned business
is now serving TXDot and local and
state entities, and is seeking GSA
contract approval, and 8a certification.
Visit Dot Communication &
Electrical Supply, Inc. on the Internet at
www.dotcom-online.info.
90 ✦ HISTORIC GRAND PRAIRIE

SPONSORS
Bancroft and Sons Transportation, Inc. .........................................................................................................................................66
Bell Aircraft Corporation ..............................................................................................................................................................58
Boriack Interiors, Inc....................................................................................................................................................................53
Dal-Worth Fabrication, Inc...........................................................................................................................................................81
Don Juan’s Romantic Mexican Food..............................................................................................................................................76
Dot Communications & Electric Supply, Inc. ...............................................................................................................................90
Douglas Bryan Photography, Inc. ..................................................................................................................................................88
First Baptist Church .....................................................................................................................................................................78
Fleming & Son Corporation .........................................................................................................................................................53
Grand Bank of Texas ....................................................................................................................................................................89
Grand Prairie................................................................................................................................................................................54
Grand Prairie Chamber of Commerce...........................................................................................................................................82
Grand Prairie Historical Organization, Inc....................................................................................................................................61
Grand Prairie Independent School District ...................................................................................................................................79
Grand Prairie Sports Facilities Development Corporation .............................................................................................................74
Great Southwest Industrial District Association ............................................................................................................................77
Guerrero-Dean Funeral Homes, Inc..............................................................................................................................................72
Hopkins Realtor/Builders..............................................................................................................................................................86
Jackson Vending Supply, Inc. .......................................................................................................................................................64
La Quinta Inn...............................................................................................................................................................................53
Lockheed Martin Missiles and Fire Control...................................................................................................................................68
Metroplex Bail Bonds....................................................................................................................................................................83
Mountain View College ................................................................................................................................................................80
Nina’s Cafe ...................................................................................................................................................................................53
Product Sales, Inc. .......................................................................................................................................................................64
REBCO Investment Company.......................................................................................................................................................85
St. John Baptist Church ................................................................................................................................................................84
Store Service, Inc..........................................................................................................................................................................64
Texas Trust Credit Union..............................................................................................................................................................62
Traders Village..............................................................................................................................................................................87
Dr. Dale Whitcomb ......................................................................................................................................................................70
Sponsors ✦ 91

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
K ATHY
A. GOOLSBY
Kathy A. Goolsby was fourteen when she began writing for The Hoot Owl, a children’s newspaper distributed
throughout the U.S. A lifelong love of writing and history inspired her to earn a bachelor’s degree in journalism with
a minor in history. Goolsby first came to know Grand Prairie in the mid-1990s as lifestyle editor of the Grand Prairie
News. She has been a reporter for The Dallas Morning News since 2001.
92 ✦ HISTORIC GRAND PRAIRIE

LEADERSHIP SPONSORS
City of Grand Prairie
ISBN: 9781893619845