Lancaster, Texas
USGenWeb >> TXGenWeb >> Dallas County >> Towns & Communities >> Lancaster, Texas
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| Latitude | 32° 36' 8" N 32.602222 |
| Longitude | 96° 46' 30" W -96.775 |
| Elevation feet/meters |
522/159 |
| Zip Code | 75134, 75146 |
| Founded | 1852 |
| GNIS FID | 1339599 |
| TXGenWeb Site | |
| Cemeteries | |
| Cemeteries | |
| Lancaster Veterans Memorial Library | |
| Lancaster Historical Society | |
| Lancaster ISD | |
| Wikipedia | |
| lancaster-tx.com | |
(/ˈlæŋkɪstər/ LANG-kis-tər)
In 1841, an act of the Republic of Texas
Congress authorized President Mirabeau Lamar to enter into a
contract with William S. Peters and nineteen associates to promote
settlement in North Texas and paid the company with free land in
exchange for recruiting new settlers. Around 600 families would
settle in what became known as Peters Colony from 1841 through 1844.
The Peters' group advertised heavily in Kentucky, Illinois,
Missouri, and Tennessee, and for that reason, many of the earliest
settlers were from those states. The first group to settle in the
Lancaster area was Roderick Rawlins and his family from Greene
County, Illinois. They left for Texas in September 1844. Rawlins and
two of his sons-in-law came ahead to select the general area where
they would settle. They chose an uninhabited area south of Dallas
along the north bank of Ten Mile Creek as the site of their new
settlement. In December 1844, the three men went back to Lamar
County near the Red River to bring the rest of their wagon train.
All of the settlers had arrived by January 2, 1845 and they formed a
community known as Hardscrabble. It consisted of two rows of log
cabins with a street running north and south. In total, 30 men,
women, and children lived in Hardscrabble.
Historical population
Census
Pop.
%±
1880
497
—
1890
741
49.1%
1900
1,045
41.0%
1910
1,115
6.7%
1920
1,190
6.7%
1930
1,133
−4.8%
1940
1,151
1.6%
1950
2,632
128.7%
1960
7,501
185.0%
1970
10,522
40.3%
1980
14,807
40.7%
1990
22,117
49.4%
2000
25,894
17.1%
2010
36,361
40.4%
Several miles north of Hardscrabble, a second community called Pleasant Run was established in 1846 by Polly Rawlins, one of Roderick's daughters, and her husband Madison Moultrie "M.M." Miller. Together, the Millers built a two-room structure with one room used as a general store and the other for living. By 1848, the structure had grown to fifteen rooms, a separate store, and a warehouse. A post office was established with biweekly mail delivery and Miller as postmaster. By 1850, he had laid out a town and sold lots, but never filed a plat of the community with Dallas County. At its peak, Pleasant Run boasted a stage stop, school, and steam-powered grist mill in addition to Miller's store. Accelerated by the death of M.M. Miller in 1860, Pleasant Run declined. Shortly after the Rawlins' settlers abandoned the Hardscrabble settlement, Lancaster became the dominant community in the area.
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Lancaster is at the junction of State Highway 342 and Pleasant Run Road, fourteen miles south of Dallas in southern Dallas County. Ten Mile Creek and its tributaries run throughout the area. Abram Bledsoe bought half of the Roderick Rawlins survey in 1847 and five years later laid out a city plan near the community of Pleasant Run. He named his township Lancaster, after the name of his birthplace, Lancaster, Kentucky. Bledsoe brought with him his daughter, Virginia, a schoolteacher, who married Roderick A. Rawlins, the son of Roderick Rawlins, a settler in the area since 1845. The White family of Tennessee moved to Lancaster in late 1851, and R. P. Henry, a native of France, moved his family to Lancaster in the early 1860s. A carding machine was operated in the community in 1850. Dr. H. J. Moffett established his drugstore and practice there in 1851. In 1860 a post office was established in Lancaster.
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