Irving, Texas

Everything Irving is known for

2 songs mention this city 10 artists from here

Music in Irving

Songs About Irving

Introduction / Washington Irving Song
Bryce Pinkham
80%
"Song about Irving"
Michael Irvin
Westside Gunn
51%
"In an Irving, Texas motel room"

Artists From Irving

P
Play‐N‐Skillz
hip-hop Pop: 54
T
Terror Universal
metal Pop: 41
P
Point Blank
rock Pop: 36
C
Calah Lane
pop Pop: 30
D
David Garza
latin Pop: 29
B
Brian McBride
electronic Pop: 28
T
The Esquires
rock Pop: 27
N
Nobody’s Children
rock Pop: 21
D
David Garza (musician)
latin Pop: 18
R
Ralyn Gayle
country Pop: 6

Rivers & Roads in Song near Irving

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

Trinity River 10 songs Interstate 45 7 songs Interstate 20 13 songs Texas State Highway 199 8 songs Interstate 35 42 songs Chisholm Trail 7 songs

Musical Heritage

The High School That Sent Out a Slugger and a ZZ Top Drummer RoadyGoat

Irving High School at 900 North O'Connor Road, the city's oldest high school, dating to 1929, has quietly turned out a couple of genuine standouts. Trevor Story was born in Irving in 1992 and starred here as a shortstop before the Colorado Rockies drafted him; he broke into the majors in spectacular fashion, becoming one of the most explosive power-hitting infielders in baseball and later signing with the Boston Red Sox. Decades earlier, these same halls educated a future rock star. Frank Beard, who grew up in the area and attended Irving High, went on to become the drummer for ZZ Top, the bearded Texas trio whose boogie-blues sound became one of the most recognizable in rock. The franchise punchline is that Beard is famously the one member of the band without the long beard. Between a big-league shortstop and the backbeat of a Texas rock institution, this ordinary-looking campus on O'Connor Road has a deeper bench than its scoreboard lets on. (Source: Wikipedia; irvingtexas.com.)

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History of Irving

Irving, TX RoadyGoat

The name Irving has a charming origin, inspired by literature. It was founded in 1903 by J.O. 'Otto' Schulze and Otis Brown, who named the city after the beloved literary author Washington Irving. The choice of name was influenced by Netta Barcus Brown, who was a fan of Washington Irving's works. This connection to literature gives Irving a unique and cultured identity among cities.

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Irving, TX RoadyGoat

Irving's history is marked by slow but steady growth, with pivotal moments that shaped the city. Founded in 1903 by J.O. 'Otto' Schulze and Otis Brown, the city was named after the literary author Washington Irving, a favorite of Netta Barcus Brown. Irving began as Gorbit in 1889 and changed its name to Kit in 1894 before becoming Irving. The population was a mere 357 in 1925, but a significant increase began in the 1930s. By the early 1960s, the city's population had grown to approximately 45,000, with manufacturing plants, transportation, retail, and financial businesses operating in the area. The University of Dallas opened in 1956, and Texas Stadium, home to the Dallas Cowboys, was completed in 1971. The Chateau Theater, part of a chain of theaters across North Texas and Oklahoma, opened in 1964. Irving's population reached 155,037 in 1990 and continued to grow, with the United States Census Bureau estimating 236,607 residents in 2016.

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Irving, TX RoadyGoat

Irving was founded in 1903 by J.O. 'Otto' Schulze and Otis Brown, who named the city after the literary author Washington Irving, a favorite of Netta Barcus Brown. The city began as an area called Gorbit in 1889 and changed its name to Kit in 1894 before becoming Irving. Irving was incorporated on April 14, 1914, with Otis Brown serving as the first mayor. The founding of Irving was a significant event that laid the foundation for the city's growth and development over the years.

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Texas Stadium Site - America's Team

1971

Texas Stadium in Irving served as home to the Dallas Cowboys from 1971 to 2008. Its distinctive partial roof and the Cowboys' five Super Bowl wins made it an icon of American sports culture.

Site of the Dr. D. W. Gilbert Homestead

1874

Site of the Dr. D. W. Gilbert Homestead Mississippi native Daniel Webster "D.W." Gilbert (1854-1930) was one of three brothers who became Texas doctors. At age 20, he joined his brother, Franklin Monroe Gilbert, in Grapevine and began to study medicine under him. In 1879, he enrolled at Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri, graduating in 1881 with a medical degree. Returning to Texas, D.W. wed Marietta Boardman in 1882. In 1886, then a widower with one son, D.W. married Fannie Trigg Roberts, a widow who also had one son. They later lived near this site in a large house he had built on a hill. The couple had nine other children; four of the boys became doctors. From a small office he built on a corner of this land, Dr. Gilbert served his patients in the surrounding communities. He later purchased additional land and raised livestock, farmed, planted a peach orchard and operated the Gilbert Dairy, utilizing progressive farming methods. Later, he moved his office to Sowers, where he also operated a drugstore, mixing medicines and training others to become pharmacists. When the town of Irving was laid out in 1903, Dr. Gilbert moved his office to a space near the local bank, which he helped organize. He later moved his office to the second story of the bank building. Dr. Gilbert continued to practice medicine in Irving until his death in 1930. Fannie Gilbert lived on the farmstead until she passed away in 1942. The home remained near this site until the 1950s, when it was demolished. Dr. Gilbert was one of the most influential early citizens in and around Irving. He is remembered for his compassion, generosity and tireless commitment to helping others.																(2004)

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Sowers Community

1856

By 1856, Edmund D. and Freelove Sowers, who came to Texas from Illinois, owned land in this vicinity. Along with their neighbors, including Jacob and Henry Caster, and William and Lucinda Haley, they farmed, hunted game and cut timber. Ed Sowers also served as a blacksmith. Sowers opened a general store on his property in the late 1870s, and a small business district developed around it. As additional families came to the area, Sowers donated land that was added to an adjacent burial plot to form the community cemetery. In 1881, he applied for a mail route and opened a post office in his general store. During that same time, Sowers built a schoolhouse for local children. In the 1880s, several physicians came to the Sowers community, including William Wilson, Alfred Gregory and Daniel Webster Gilbert, who had a local drugstore. Dr. John Haley, a Sowers native who would later serve as mayor of Irving, began his medical practice here in 1897. With medical services and the post office, the Sowers community served as a center for area farming communities. Ed and Freelove Sowers held annual Fourth of July picnics and other festivals, inviting families from the region to camp, dance, compete in baseball games and enjoy barbecue dinners. Despite the growth of nearby Irving, the Sowers community, with strong foundations in the dairy and poultry businesses, survived until the 1950s. The Sowers School consolidated with Irving schools in 1955, and Irving annexed the community itself in 1954 and 1956. Today, the businesses and homes are gone. Only the cemetery remains as a link to the Sowers community. (2003)

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Cistercian Fathers

1958

Our Lady of Dallas Abbey, the home of the Cistercians in Texas, is located in Irving off Highway 114, near Texas Stadium, Las Colinas, and the University of Dallas. It comprises thirty-six acres dotted with elevations and mesquite trees, and its brick buildings exhibit both modern and traditional architectural features. Its chapel, built in the early 1990s, is a massive limestone building with no veneers and few modern features; according to one critic, "the Cistercian church evokes 900 years of history, scholarship and prayer." The members of the community dedicate themselves exclusively to the love of God and the service of their fellow men. To be undivided in their loyalties they renounce marriage and individual ownership and subordinate their wills to the higher ideals of their institution. They belong to the world-wide Cistercian order, hence are called Cistercians. The name derives from Citeaux (in Latin, Cistercium ), their parent abbey in Burgundy, founded as a reform branch of the Benedictine order in 1098. The Cistercians, who adopted the white habit and black scapular, quickly spread over all of Europe and influenced medieval life in numerous ways. Their constitutional document, the Charter of Charity , is said to have inspired parliamentary government. The Cistercians in Irving came from the abbey of Zirc in western Hungary, founded in 1182. Upon higher request, Zirc, cloistered at first, accepted full educational and teaching responsibilities in the latter part of the eighteenth century. Afterward the monk-priests also acquired academic degrees in the liberal arts and taught in one of the five modern college preparatory schools of the abbey. They trained generations of prominent public figures and intellectual leaders. Hungarian monks living in the United States after the Communist takeover were invited by Bishop Thomas Gorman to the Diocese of Dallas-Fort Worth. They moved into their own monastery, built on the campus of the University of Dallas, in 1958. Five years later their priory was raised to the status of an abbey. Since then, buildings have multiplied on their grounds, and American vocations have increased their ranks. The Irving Cistercians follow a rigorous daily schedule. Their communal prayer life includes the recitation of the monastic office, made up largely of psalms, and on Sundays they also chant traditional Gregorian melodies. As teachers, they staff their own Cistercian Preparatory School for boys grades five through twelve, built on their premises in 1963, or serve as teachers or administrators at the University of Dallas. They carry out their priestly ministry in the abbey, as well as in parishes, convents, and military bases of the metropolitan area. Individually, the monks are well-versed in languages and have earned advanced degrees in the classics, modern languages, science, history, music, philosophy, and theology. Some have published scholarly books and articles, given talks on a variety of subjects, or cultivated the fine arts on a highly professional level. Thus one can see attractive sculptures, paintings, ceramics, and prints all over the monastery. Collectively, the Cistercians contribute their spirituality, achievements, and cosmopolitan enthusiasm to the culture of North Texas.

Tsha Handbook → · 3.3 mi away

Las Colinas, TX

1973

Las Colinas is a commercial and residential community on State Highway 183, Interstate highways 35E and 635, and Belt Line Road within the city of Irving and ten miles northwest of Dallas in western Dallas County. It is southeast of the Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport . At the center of Las Colinas is Lake Carolyn; the community also includes the University of Dallas, North Lake Community College, Las Colinas Country Club, Texas Stadium, and the Trinity River Greenbelt Park. The site was settled during the late 1800s, and by the early 1900s a number of small towns, including Kit, Sowers, Finley, and Irving, were in the vicinity. In 1928 John W. Carpenter , father of the founder of Las Colinas, Ben Carpenter, established a ranch in the area; by 1959 the ranch, originally called Hackberry Creek Ranch, had grown to 6,000 acres. The ranch was renamed El Ranchito de Las Colinas (the little ranch of the hills) and was managed by John Carpenter's son Ben and Dan C. Williams. In the late 1960s the westward growth of Dallas prompted the men to develop the ranch as a residential area, but after plans for the D-FW Airport were revealed, Carpenter and Williams began developing a master-planned commercial and residential community. The project was to take some twenty years to complete and would originally encompass about 7,000 acres, 3,450 of which would be used for recreational and educational facilities and Lake Carolyn, a 125-acre man-made lake. The remaining acreage would include numerous business parks built around a public transportation system that would include the Mandalay Canal (a series of canals and water taxis) and the Area Personal Transit system (a system of elevated tracks and passenger vehicles that would serve 1,000 acres of Las Colinas). The community would also have residences for 50,000 people; the residences would be developed so as to preserve the natural setting. The development of Las Colinas was announced on September 14, 1973, as a joint venture of Southland Financial Corporation (represented by corporate president Ben H. Carpenter and chairman Dan C. Williams) and its subsidiary, the Las Colinas Corporation (represented by chairman Wayne Hurd and president Ernest O. Perry). At the date of the announcement the Las Colinas Country Club had already been completed and two residential areas were under construction. University Hills Village was next to the country club, and Northgate Village was at the southern end of the community. Additional acreage had already been donated for the University of Dallas and for a park on the nearby Elm Fork of the Trinity River. The Dallas County Community College system had also secured a section of land in the community for North Lake College. Construction on the infrastructure began along State Highway 114 (the John W. Carpenter Freeway), and Allstate Insurance Company, the first corporation to settle in Las Colinas, bought a section of land in the site for its new regional office building. In the next two years Las Colinas developed slowly because of a poor economy, but by 1975, 627 acres had been fully developed and two business parks had also been completed. In 1976 the Associates Corporation of North America moved its national headquarters to Las Colinas, and American Honda Corporation moved its regional headquarters there. Around 1977 the Las Colinas National Bank was chartered, and the world headquarters of Sunmark Exploration Company was established there. In 1978 the national headquarters of the Boy Scouts of America was moved to Las Colinas; both General Telephone and Electronics Corporation and General Motors Corporation established new headquarters in the community. Warehouse and distribution space was established at Las Colinas for Pioneer Electronics, Panasonic Company, and Super Valu stores. By April 1978, 831 apartments had been completed and 417 were under construction, and 1,807 homes had been completed and eighty-two were under construction. The number of

Tsha Handbook → · 3.3 mi away

Things to Do in Irving

historical 8.5 mi away
The Sixth Floor Museum

Where Lee Harvey Oswald fired from. The JFK assassination site at Dealey Plaza.
historical 8.5 mi away
Dealey Plaza

On November 22 1963 President John F Kennedy rode through Dealey Plaza in an open Lincoln convertible and was shot from the sixth floor window of the Texas…
quirky 11.2 mi away
Big Tex at the State Fair

A fifty-five-foot cowboy named Big Tex has welcomed visitors to the State Fair of Texas in Fair Park Dallas every fall since 1952. He booms howdy folks over a…
food 22.7 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 23.1 mi away
Fort Worth Stockyards

Daily cattle drives down the street. Honky-tonks and rodeos in the old West.
historical 23.2 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…
food 9.7 mi away
Pecan Lodge

Dallas' best BBQ. The beef rib alone is worth the drive.
spooky 13.1 mi away
Lady of White Rock Lake

Since the 1930s drivers along White Rock Lake report picking up a soaking-wet woman in a white dress. She asks for a ride home then vanishes leaving the seat…

Everything Near Irving

1744 stories, landmarks & places within ~20 miles — the same local lore RoadyGoat plays as you drive through.

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