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Texas became the 28th state on December 29, 1845
Capital - Austin
Motto - Friendship
Nickname - Lone Star State
Song - Texas, Our Texas
Flower - Bluebonnet
Tree- Pecan
Bird - Mockingbird

In memory of
Malcom Luther "Mike" Basham
First TXGenWeb State Coordinator
25 May 1942
to
15 September 1997

Adjacent Counties
  Collin County, TX - N
  Denton County, TX - NW
  Ellis County, TX - S
  Kaufman County, TX - E
  Rockwall County, TX - E
  Tarrant County, TX - W
   
TXGenWeb County Listings




Grand Prairie, Texas

USGenWeb  >> TXGenWeb  >> Dallas County  >> Towns & Communities >> Grand Prairie, Texas

Latitude 32° 42' 55" N
32.715278
Longitude 97° 1' 1" W
-97.016944
Elevation
feet/meters		 515/157
Zip Code 75050-75054
Founded  
GNIS FID 1336802
TXGenWeb Site
 
Cemeteries
Library
Local Genealogy Society
Wikipedia
gptx.org
 

Historical population
Census Pop %±
1910 994 —
1920 1,263 27.1%
1930 1,529 21.1%
1940 1,595 4.3%
1950 14,594 815.0%
1960 30,386 108.2%
1970 50,904 67.5%
1980 71,462 40.4%
1990 99,616 39.4%
2000 127,427 27.9%
2010 175,396 37.6%
The city of Grand Prairie was first established as Dechman by Alexander McRae Dechman in 1863. Prior to then, he resided in Young County near Fort Belknap. The 1860 U.S. Federal Census - Slave Schedules shows an A McR Dechman as having 4 slaves, ages 50, 25, 37 and 10. Dechman, learned that he could trade his oxen and wagons for land in Dallas County. In 1863, Dechman bought 239.5 acres (96.9 ha) of land on the eastern side of the Trinity River and 100 acres (40 ha) of timber land on the west side of the river for a broken-down wagon, oxen team and US$200 in Confederate money. He tried to establish a home on the property, but ran into difficulties, so he returned to his family in Birdville before joining in the Civil War. In 1867 he filed a town plat consisting of 50 acres (20 ha) with Dallas County.

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Grand Prairie is on U.S. highways 80 and 303, Interstate highways 20 and 30, and Farm Road 1382, thirteen miles west of downtown Dallas in western Dallas and eastern Tarrant counties. The townsite comprises seventy-three square miles enclosed by Dallas, Arlington, Irving, and Cedar Hill. Mountain Creek Lake is on the east, a portion of Joe Pool Lake is in southern Grand Prairie, and Kirby, Cottonwood, and Fish creeks flow through the community. Settlers arrived in the area before the Civil War and built several stores, including the M. M. Miller store and the Phillip Goetsell store. The community was not organized, however, until 1863 when A. M. Dechman's wagon broke down on his trip from Jacksonville, Texas, to Fort Belknap with supplies for the army commissary. He traded his broken wagon, ox team, and $200 of Confederate money for a 239-acre tract that had originally been granted on May 1, 1850, to William and Walter Caruth.

The community became officially known as Dechman or Deckman when it received a post office in 1874. W. M. Haskett was the first postmaster, and the post office was on land donated by Dechman. By that time a daily stage ran through Deckman on its way from Dallas to Fort Worth, and in 1875 a stage was robbed right outside the community. Early churches in the area included the West Fork United Presbyterian Church, built in 1870 and located in Tarrant County in a community then known as Watson, and the Valley Church on the Dallas County side with a log building that served as both a nondenominational church and a school.

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