Where Community Embraces Heritage and Nature

Perched atop the highest elevation between the Red River and the Gulf Coast, Cedar Hill, Texas is a vibrant, growing southwest Dallas County community and a place where both family living and economic opportunity complement each other. The beauty of the rolling terrain, heavily punctuated with thousands of native cedar trees, is near Mountain Creek and Joe Pool Lakes. The escarpment which lies east of Joe Pool Lake is one of the most scenic areas in Dallas County. Along with the natural beauty of the area, the city embraces a rich heritage that includes pioneers and preachers, outlaws and educators, agriculture and technology.

In its earlier history, the densely covered area served as a hiding ground for those evading the law, as well as a resource for folks as far away as Oklahoma who sought cedar posts for fencing. Before these days, much of the terrain was underwater, leaving abundant samples of fossils, mother of pearl, and sharks teeth embedded into the Austin limestone that runs along the edge of the city.

Shortly after 1835, a group of early Texas Rangers reported “no sign of civilized humans south of the Trinity River.” Then, in 1840, when Texas broke from Mexico and functioned as an independent republic, a road northward from Austin was built, following the approximate path of the current I-35. Numerous Native American tribes lived in and out of the area, many ‘wintering’ here. A battle took place between two warring tribes that met near current High Pointe neighborhood, leaving Indian artifacts on the acreage.

Sales posters in Kentucky, Alabama, and other adjoining states brought settlers to North Texas, seeking the “France of the New World,” as the handbills advertised. Pioneers filtrated into what was known then as Peters Colony. In 1844, 197 families and 184 single men were living in the region, with Cedar Hill the second largest settlement in the area. The new citizens arrived in Dallas on the Trinity River before traveling south on a trail that ran through Hord’s Ridge (now Oak Cliff)—to the “cedar brakes” and their new lives.

Crawford Trees is recognized as one of Cedar Hill’s earliest settlers. His marriage on July 22, 1846 was the first one registered in the newly formed Dallas County, and the marriage license is memorialized in the cornerstone at the Old Red Courthouse in downtown Dallas. Trees returned from the California Gold Rush with enough money to purchase several thousand acres of Cedar Hill land. During the Civil War he enlisted and fought in the Confederate army. One of Trees’ late 1880s barns is now a family home on Cedar Hill Road.

Another early settler in the area was Andrew Penn. Arriving here for a visit with Trees, he bought land and brought his family to make their home on the edge of the prairie. He was a rancher and used the cedar mountain for grazing and the bottomland of the mountain creek for farming. A Northern sympathizer, he left his family and went north during the Civil War. One of his sons was killed fighting for the South during this time.

The 1845 Central National Road, via its intersection in Dallas with the Preston-Austin Road, connected north and south Texas and ran close to Cedar Hill. In 1852 the town opened the first post office in the area followed by the first official school hosting sixteen students. Previously, Major Penn imported a schoolteacher and provided a cabin on his property. The cabin is currently preserved inside a barn at Penn Farm Agricultural Heritage Center inside Cedar Hill State Park.

In 1856, a deadly tornado, made up of two funnel clouds that merged, destroyed the town, leaving only one house and one business undamaged, and nine citizens not only dead but unrecognizable. Gone were the post office, blacksmith shop, and mercantile, the only source of supplies for the thriving community. Posts and trees were splintered, and items from Cedar Hill homes were found as far away as the current Dallas Zoo location. More than 300 people from surrounding communities helped rebuild the town, and it soon became a center of trade and shipping for the area. The graveyard where the dead were buried was lost for almost 100 years until local resident Wanda Pitt located it, researched its authenticity, and secured designation of Crawford’s Tornado Graveyard as a Historic Texas Cemetery. The graveyard was reconsecrated in a blessing ceremony October 7, 2011, and the Texas Historical Commission marker was officially placed on the site April 29, 2012, the 156th anniversary of the tornado. The site is located north of Pioneer Trail in Cedar Hill, near the city’s Signature Trail.

Beginning in the 1860s, a line of the Chisholm Trail wandered through Cedar Hill, and the 1870s brought Indian raids, church burnings and a few saloons to the town. It is even rumored that Belle Starr visited Cedar Hill on occasion.

The 1880s saw transportation of goods and services by horse and wagon replaced by rail. In 1881 the Chicago, Texas & Mexican Central Railroad extended a line through Cedar Hill and on to Midlothian. Dr. R. A. Roberts was instrumental in securing railroad right-of-way, brining even more growth and benefit to the community. 

The 1890s established Cedar Hill as a leading farm community with two competing cotton gins. Fires at both, and also in one of the churches, did not diminish its stand, nor its resolute spirit. A Saturday trip to town for supplies, and church on Sunday, was typically the only break from hard work for these pioneer families. An 1892 city directory listed two druggists, two blacksmiths, and two confectioners—one of which was also the town barber.

Around the turn of the century, the only telephone in town was at Well’s General Store on the NW corner of Cedar and Main Streets, with a telephone exchange established inside a home at the SE corner of Main and Belt Line Streets. Now Cedar Hill residents could keep up with outside events and be freed from their isolation. The Elliott-Abernathy House still stands at 408 W. Belt Line Rd.

In the 1920s the Dynamo Electric Plant provided electricity to Cedar Hill customers, with a 10:30 p.m warning ‘blink’ before shutting down completely at 11:00. Despite the availability of electricity, cooking on wood burning stoves continued until WWII, and some farms didn’t have electricity until the 1940s. During that same period, many homes and farms relied on cisterns as their water supply. Sometime later Midlothian Oil Mill and Gin laid unprotected, above-ground, water lines, but those were prone to freezing in the winter.

Throughout the 1920s and 30s, farmers ginned an average of 5,000 bales of cotton annually, but by 1940 the emphasis had shifted to dairy and cattle.

On October 8, 1932, Barrow Gang member Raymond Hamilton, from the nearby town of Florence Hill, robbed the then First State Bank in Cedar Hill. It was reported that Hamilton spoke to many of the locals on his way to rob bank. After taking the money, Hamilton locked the bank employees inside the vault. When Hamilton got wind of reports that some of the cash had been hidden during the first robbery, he returned to rob the bank again. The former bank building, including the vault, still stands today on the NE corner of Cedar and Houston Streets.

Local citizens were hired by Dallas County to serve as deputy sheriffs until the 1970’s, when the city hired official lawmen.