DUANE
Duane's take
Now, I'm gonna tell this one the way the marker tells it — straight from the record of Big Spring, down in Dallas County. Pull up a chair, because this stretch of the White Rock Creek Valley has got more history layered into it than most folks ever stop to notice. A natural water feature, right there near where White Rock Creek meets the Trinity River, and the ground beneath it has been holding stories for centuries.
Native Americans occupied that site for centuries before any settler ever drove a stake. Let that sink in. Centuries.
Then comes 1842, and a man named John Beeman shows up and claims it — the patriarch of the very first family to settle permanently in Dallas County. First family. That's not a small thing to put on a man's name.
Now, the very next fall — 1843 — things get considerably more interesting out at that spring. Republic of Texas President Sam Houston himself comes riding through, leading an Indian treaty delegation and his whole entourage, camped right there at Big Spring, en route to Bird's Fort. And Houston needed a guide.
The man he'd been counting on, one John H. Reagan, had taken ill. So Houston turned to James Jackson Beeman — of that same Beeman family — and engaged him to step in and lead the way.
The spring that John Beeman claimed was already hosting the president of the Republic of Texas. When John Beeman died in 1856, his estate didn't scatter to the wind. The north half of that Big Spring tract passed to his daughter Margaret — and here's where Dallas history starts folding in on itself — because Margaret had married Dallas founder John Neely Bryan back in 1843.
The entire Bryan family made their homes right there on those bottom lands through the 1860s and into the 1870s. After John Bryan's death, Margaret sold the property to a man named Edward Case Pemberton, who had recently emigrated from Illinois. Pemberton was not a man who sat idle.
He reared seven sons on that land, farmed it, operated a dairy, and ran a store on the Kaufman Road nearby. He kept acquiring additional acreage in the area. When Edward Pemberton died in 1914, that land passed to his widow and his sons.
And the Pemberton descendants — those sons and the generations that followed — continued to live and farm on most of those properties for years to come. Three families. Beeman, Bryan, and Pemberton.
Three prominent pioneer Dallas families holding onto that spring and those bottom lands across more than a hundred and sixty years of private ownership. That's not an accident. That's a place worth keeping.
In 2003, the City of Dallas finally purchased the spring and those bottom lands as part of the Great Trinity Forest Project. The water that drew Native Americans for centuries, that watered Sam Houston's camp on a fall night in 1843, that fed John Beeman's claim and Margaret Bryan's inheritance and Edward Pemberton's dairy — that water is now part of something the whole city holds. Big Spring didn't disappear into history.
It became it.
What the marker says
Big Spring, a natural water feature located in the White Rock Creek Valley near its mouth on the Trinity River in Dallas County, was claimed in 1842 by John Beeman, the patriarch of the first family to settle permanently in the county. Prior to Beeman's claim, the site was occupied by Native Americans for centuries. In the fall of 1843, Republic of Texas President Sam Houston and his Indian treaty delegation and entourage camped at the site enroute to Bird's Fort. Houston engaged James Jackson Beeman to be his guide to replace the ailing John H. Reagan. When John Beeman died in 1856, the north half of the Big Spring tract was inherited by his daughter, Margaret, who married Dallas founder john Neely Bryan in 1843. The entire Bryan family made their homes here in the 1860s and 1870s. After John Bryan's death, Margaret sold the property to Edward Case Pemberton, who had recently emigrated from Illinois. Edward Pemberton reared seven sons, farmed and operated a dairy here and a store on the Kaufman Road nearby. He acquired additional acreage in the area which was inherited by his widow and sons when he died in 1914. Pemberton descendants continued to live and farm on most of these properties through several generations. Big Spring's private ownership spanned more than 160 years by three prominent pioneer Dallas families: Beeman, Bryan and Pemberton. The spring and bottom lands were purchased by the City of Dallas in 2003 as part of the Great Trinity Forest Project.