DUANE
Duane's take
Here's my telling of what the official marker at Cedar Springs has to say — so settle in. Before there was a town here, there was a survey. Back in the late 1830s, Colonel G.
W. Cooke came through this stretch of Texas with one purpose: map it out for a military road running all the way from Austin up to the Red River. He did his work, made his notes, and moved on.
The land sat quiet. Then came 1843. Dr.
John Cole, his wife Mary, and their eight children arrived in the area. Eight children. That family didn't travel light.
Cole had received a Peters colony land grant about two miles east of the Cedar Springs branch of the Trinity River — which might've been perfectly fine land — but he looked over toward those springs and thought, no, that's where I want to be. So he purchased additional acreage closer in, built a home, and opened a general store. The marker tells us the community's name possibly came from the abundance of cedar trees growing right there near the springs.
Possibly. It's the kind of detail that sounds obvious once you hear it, but the marker's careful enough not to call it a certainty, and so am I. Word spread, as it tends to do when somebody builds a store.
Cedar Springs gradually attracted additional settlers, and before long there was a distillery, a steam-powered flour mill, and a grist mill operating in the community. Things were movin'. And then — 1850 happened.
Dallas was selected as the Dallas County Seat, and just like that, the momentum Cedar Springs had been buildin' started to drain away. Development declined. The community that had grown up around those springs and cedar trees began to recede.
Now, that's not quite the end of the story. Toward the end of the nineteenth century, the area found a second wind — suburban growth crept back in, and the place was renamed Oak Lawn. And then, in a series of municipal actions between 1920 and 1940, the City of Dallas annexed the site of the early town of Cedar Springs altogether.
Colonel Cooke surveyed a road corridor. Dr. Cole built a home and a store.
A community rose, slowed, reinvented itself, and eventually got folded into the city that had outrun it. That's Cedar Springs — a town that started before the county seat existed and ended up inside it.
What the marker says
Although settlement of the town of Cedar Springs did not begin until after 1843, the area had been surveyed during the late 1830s by Colonel G. W. Cooke in preparation for construction of a military road from Austin to the Red River. In 1843, Dr. John Cole and his wife, Mary, along with their eight children, arrived in this area. Cole received a Peters colony land grant about two miles east of the Cedar Springs branch of the Trinity River. Preferring to settle closer to the springs, he purchased additional acreage in this area, built a home, and opened a general store. The name of the community possibly was taken from the abundance of cedar trees near the springs. Cedar Springs gradually attracted additional settlers, and several other businesses, including a distillery, steam-powered flour mill, and grist mill, were begun. Development of the Cedar Springs community declined following Dallas' selection as the Dallas County Seat in 1850. Toward the end of the nineteenth century, the area began to experience suburban growth and was renamed Oak Lawn. The site of the early town of Cedar Springs was annexed by the City of Dallas in a series of municipal actions between 1920 and 1940.