Crowley, Texas

Everything Crowley is known for

2 songs mention this city 1 artist from here

Music in Crowley

Songs About Crowley

Midnight
Khruangbin & Leon Bridges
49%
"I lived in Crowley Town"
running out of time
casey donahew
10%

Artists From Crowley

B
BB Bean
indie

Rivers & Roads in Song near Crowley

Songs written about the waterways and highways that run near Crowley.

Interstate 20 13 songs Texas State Highway 199 8 songs Chisholm Trail 8 songs Brazos River 42 songs Trinity River 11 songs Interstate 45 8 songs

Musical Heritage

Where Kelly Clarkson Found Her Voice RoadyGoat

Before she won the very first season of American Idol in 2002 and became one of the biggest pop voices in the country, Kelly Clarkson was just a kid in Burleson. Born in Fort Worth in 1982, she grew up here in this suburb south of the city, and the story locals love is that her gift was first spotted in a school hallway. As a seventh grader, her singing caught the ear of her school's choir teacher, who pulled her toward formal training, and she went on through the Burleson schools as a standout vocalist. A decade later that voice carried her through a national television contest watched by millions and straight to a number-one debut single. Burleson was a small enough town that a choir teacher could change the course of a career simply by hearing something in a hallway, and the singer who answered that call still gets claimed, proudly, as Burleson's own. (Source: Wikipedia; NBC.)

RoadyGoat → · 4.0 mi away

The Hometown Voice RoadyGoat

1982

Burleson's most famous daughter is the singer Kelly Clarkson, who grew up here before winning the very first season of a national televised singing competition in 2002 and going on to one of the biggest pop careers of her generation. Years later, she said her small-town upbringing was exactly what prepared her for the strangest part of fame, the loss of privacy. In her words: Everyone has something to say, or can be invasive of your privacy, and for whatever reason that calmed me because I grew up in that atmosphere and so I knew I could handle it. She has said she approaches her whole career the way she'd approach the small town she came from.

4.0 mi away

History of Crowley

Deer Creek rolled a mile west RoadyGoat

Imagine getting news that a new superhighway is being built, but it's going to bypass your town by a mile. That's exactly what happened here in the mid-1880s, but with a railroad. The original settlement, a farming community on Deer Creek dating to about 1848, was doing just fine. But when the Gulf, Colorado and Santa Fe Railway laid its tracks from Fort Worth toward Cleburne, the line ran about a mile west of the village, and the company put its stock pens and its first depot — built in 1885 — out there instead. The residents of Deer Creek faced a stark choice: stay put and be forgotten, or follow the future. In a remarkable feat of frontier determination, they chose to move. They dismantled their buildings or put them on rolling logs and skids, and with teams of mules and oxen dragged their homes, stores, and lives west across the open prairie to the new depot. The town they renamed for S. H. Crowley, the railroad's master of transportation, wasn't just built; it was relocated.

RoadyGoat →

Aligned to the Tracks, Not the Compass RoadyGoat

The straight, unwavering line of the railroad tracks cutting through Crowley isn't an accident; it's a monument to 19th-century engineering. When the Gulf, Colorado and Santa Fe Railway planned its route in the 1880s, surveyors faced a complex math problem. They needed the flattest, straightest, and most economical path across the prairie. Using tools like transits and surveyor's chains, they calculated the precise grade, avoiding hills and creek beds where possible to minimize the need for expensive cuts, fills, and bridges. They placed the Crowley depot at a mathematically determined point—a profitable distance from Fort Worth to justify a new stop. The town itself was then laid out as a grid, oriented to the tracks, not to the compass. This entire community is a physical manifestation of a logistics calculation, a place engineered into existence by the powerful, practical math of the railroad.

RoadyGoat →

Crowley, TX RoadyGoat

The founding of Crowley is closely tied to the expansion of the Gulf, Colorado and Santa Fe Railway. Around 1848, pioneers began farming the area around Deer Creek. However, it was the construction of pens and the laying of tracks by the railway that led the settlement to move to its current location. The first station depot was built in 1885, marking a significant milestone in Crowley's history. This shift westward, prompted by the railway, set the stage for Crowley's development into the city it is today.

Miller Brewery + Mrs. Baird's Bakery — Bread and Beer

1908

Miller Brewing Co. opened its Fort Worth plant in September 1969 at 7001 South Freeway; 155 acres, largest brewery in Texas. Mrs. Baird's Bakery sits 3 blocks south at 7301 South Freeway. Bread and beer share Saccharomyces cerevisiae yeast — historically bakers bought yeast foam (barm) from brewers. Munich baker-brewer dispute of 1481 is one of the earliest written records of the relationship.

4.6 mi away

The Interurban in Burleson

1911

At the turn of the 20th century, the Northern Texas Traction Co. found success with an interurban railway that operated between Fort Worth and Dallas. In 1911, a group began planning a new interurban that would run from Fort Worth to Cleburne by way of Everman, Burleson and Joshua. By that time, Burleson had approximately 700 residents and an active business district, and the city incorporated in 1912. The Fort Worth Southern Traction Co. came to town that year seeking employees and arranged with businessman and community leader Albert H. Loyless to be their local representative. He moved his Loyless-Robbins Pharmacy from a two-story wooden building across the street to a new brick building at this site. The traction company constructed an electrical plant and freight dock behind the building, and the pharmacy, complete with soda fountain and interurban ticket counter, occupied the front of the orange-brick structure. The first public run of the electrical train line came through Burleson on September 1, 1912. From that date until 1931, the train carried people in and out of town, brought goods to them from other cities, and helped make the pharmacy a community center. In 1935, a few years after the interurban ceased its service and motor coaches and automobiles took its place, Loyless, accepting the position of Burleson postmaster, moved his business next door to the post office. Robert Deering bought the former pharmacy building and from it published his newspaper, the Burleson News (later Burleson Dispatcher). The city later purchased the building for use as a visitors center. (2006)

Historical Marker → · 3.9 mi away

Renfro-Clark House

1894

Home of heirs of donor of the Burleson townsite. By providing land for the M.K.T. Railroad line, Henry C. Renfro (deceased 1885) won right to name town for his friend, Dr. Rufus Burleson, a pioneer preacher, president of Waco College (1861-86) and Baylor University (1851-61; 1886-97). This was the first house in the Clark addition, and was built in 1894 by Mrs. Henry C. Renfro and her only daughter, Margaret Annette Baker Clark.

Historical Marker → · 4.0 mi away

Barron Field

1917

One of three World War I fight training centers in the Ft. Worth area, Taliaferro Field No. 2 was built on this site in Nov. 1917. First used by Canadian cadets, it was occupied in April 1918 by American military units. In May, the facility was renamed Barron Field for Cadet Robert J. Barron, who was killed at another flying school. Covering over 600 acres, the camp housed as many as 150 officers and 900 enlisted men. Barron Field sent six Air Squadrons to France before the war ended, Nov. 11, 1918. The training facility closed in 1921, and today only the munitions building remains. (1976)

Historical Marker → · 4.9 mi away

The Cullen Davis Mansion Shootings — Fort Worth, Texas, 1976

1976

Fort Worth, August second, nineteen seventy-six. Just after midnight, a man dressed in black walked through the darkened Cullen Davis estate and opened fire. Four people were shot. Twelve-year-old Andrea Wilborn died in the basement. A family friend named Stan Farr died near the door. Priscilla Davis — shot through the chest — staggered bleeding to a neighbor's house and told police the shooter wa…

Curated → · 8.5 mi away

Things to Do in Crowley

food 13.1 mi away
Joe T. Garcia's

Joe T opened his little family restaurant behind the packing plant in the Fort Worth Stockyards in 1935. There was no menu. His wife Jessie served whatever she…
historical 14.3 mi away
Fort Worth Stockyards

Daily cattle drives down the street. Honky-tonks and rodeos in the old West.
historical 14.3 mi away
Billy Bob's Texas

Billy Bob's opened in 1981 in an old cattle barn in the Fort Worth Stockyards and at one hundred twenty-seven thousand square feet it is the largest honky-tonk…
historical 23.9 mi away
WWII Marine Glider Base at Eagle Mountain

In 1942 the United States Marines bought 2931 acres of ranchland on Eagle Mountain Lake for a purpose that sounds almost unbelievable now — training pilots to…
quirky 24.0 mi away
The Azle Earthquake Swarm

Starting in November 2013 the ground beneath Azle started shaking and it did not stop for 84 days. Twenty-seven earthquakes rattled windows cracked foundations…
spooky 14.4 mi away
Lake Worth Monster

In 1969 dozens of witnesses reported a half-man half-goat creature prowling the shores of Lake Worth. Police investigated. The monster was never caught.
historical 23.9 mi away
Azle on the Comanche Frontier

When the first settlers arrived in 1846 they planted themselves right on the contested line between Parker and Tarrant Counties — which also happened to be the…
historical 23.9 mi away
The 280-Mile Ox Wagon Lumber Haul

The first settler in Azle who wanted a proper plank home instead of a log cabin faced a simple problem — the nearest lumber was in Houston 280 miles away. So…

Everything Near Crowley

1193 stories, landmarks & places within ~20 miles — the nearest 200 are listed here — the same local lore RoadyGoat plays as you drive through.

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