Pleasant Run

Duane's take

Here's how the official marker tells it: and Pleasant Run's got a story worth tellin'. Madison Moultrie Miller came west out of Alabama, and right away you can tell this is a man who wasn't going to sit still. Before he ever put down roots, he was riding as a Texas Ranger under W.

W. "Bigfoot" Wallace; that's 1844 to 1845, out on the frontier where the work was hard and the odds weren't always in your favor. By 1846, Miller was done ranging and ready for something else. He settled here, north of what is now Lancaster, and he didn't arrive alone; he had a motherless daughter and son with him.

Not long after, he married Mary Parks Rawlins, who went by Polly. Now Polly's father was Roderick Rawlins, already known as a pioneer settler of this very area. Miller had found his place, and he was about to make the most of it.

He opened a store right in his own home, on the road leading to Johnson's Station; present-day Arlington. He gave a site for the first local school. And then, in 1848, he enlarged that home to fifteen rooms.

Fifteen. That's not a house anymore, that's an operation. And he built it out to match: a warehouse, a store stocked with goods imported from New York, ranging from fine silks all the way down to hardware, medicines, and saddles.

He ran a grist mill, a stage stand, a hotel. Woodworking, tin, and blacksmith shops. The man was building a town practically by himself.

Also in 1848, Miller became the first postmaster of Pleasant Run. So the place had a name, it had commerce, it had mail. In the 1850s he laid out a town proper and sold lots.

He pushed to bring Trinity Navigation to the area. He worked for railroad service. He was trying to tie Pleasant Run into the larger world, to make sure Dallas County grew along with it.

And then Madison Moultrie Miller died. He was forty-six years old. Born in 1814, gone by 1860.

After his death, the store closed. The other enterprises followed. The growth of his town stopped like a clock somebody forgot to wind.

His family home stood until the 1950s; more than ninety years after he was gone. And his post office building still exists today, folded into a structure on Elm Street. The town he laid out, the town he poured his life into, it lives on in the name Pleasant Run Road, right there in Lancaster.

Some men build things that outlast them. Madison Miller built a whole world out here, and even after most of it faded, the name he gave it stayed on the map.

What the marker says

Madison Moultrie Miller (1814-60) came west from Alabama and served under W. W. "Bigfoot" Wallace in 1844-45 as a Texas Ranger. Settling here in 1846 with a motherless daughter and son, he soon married Mary (Polly) Parks Rawlins, daughter of this area's pioneer settler Roderick Rawlins. Miller situated himself just north of present Lancaster, opening a store in his home on the road to Johnson's Station (present Arlington), and giving site for first local school. He enlarged his home to 15 rooms in 1848 and built a warehouse and a store, where goods imported from New York ranged from fine silks to hardware, medicines, and saddles. He had a grist mill, a stage stand and hotel; woodworking, tin, and blacksmith shops; and was first postmaster of Pleasant Run, 1848. In the 1850s, Miller laid out a town and sold lots. To benefit Pleasant Run and Dallas County, he tried to secure Trinity Navigation, and Railroad Service. His death at age 46 and the subsequent closing of his store and other enterprises halted growth of his town, but his family home stood until the 1950s. His post office building still exists as a part of a structure on Elm Street, and his town's name is memoralized in Pleasant Run Road, Lancaster. Marker Donor: Lancaster Historical Society