Cedar Springs

Duane's take

Here's how the official marker tells it, and I'll do my best to do it justice. Now, before Dallas was Dallas, before it was much of anything, really, there was Cedar Springs. Earliest known historic site in all of Dallas County.

Let that sit with you a moment. All of Dallas County. In 1840, Colonel William G.

Cooke came through on a preliminary exploration, scoutin' a route between Austin and Red River. He found this place, noted it, moved on. Didn't know, couldn't have known, what kind of story he was steppin' into.

Then came 1843, and a man named Dr. John Cole decided this particular patch of ground was worth puttin' down roots. He established a community here; called it Cedar Springs, same as the site; and that community had ambitions.

Big ones. Because when 1848 rolled around and Dallas County needed to pick itself a county seat, Cedar Springs didn't just show up to the election; it rivalled Dallas. Rivalled it.

Two towns, one prize, and Cedar Springs was right there in the thick of it. History, of course, has a dry sense of humor. Dallas won that contest, and Cedar Springs eventually faded from the kind of maps that matter.

For decades it held its own ground, just outside the city line, until 1929, when Dallas finally reached out and annexed the land. The earliest known historic site in Dallas County, absorbed at last into the city it once ran against. Some races, it turns out, take about eighty years to finish.

What the marker says

CEDAR SPRINGS Earliest known historic site in Dallas County Visited in 1840 by Colonel Wm. G. Cooke's preliminary exploration for a route between Austin and Red River. A community also called Cedar Springs, established in this vicinity in 1843 by Dr. John Cole, rivalled Dallas in an election in 1848 for county seat. In 1929, the land was annexed to Dallas.