Rowlett, Texas

Everything Rowlett is known for

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Music in Rowlett

Songs About Rowlett

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Artists From Rowlett

K
Kendall Shaw
country

Rivers & Roads in Song near Rowlett

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

Interstate 20 13 songs Interstate 45 8 songs Trinity River 11 songs Sabine River 13 songs Sulphur River 2 songs Interstate 35 43 songs

Musical Heritage

Autumn Sound Studios (now Audio Dallas) RoadyGoat

There's a squat beige brick building in an industrial park in Garland, northeast of Dallas, that had been open all of three months when Willie Nelson walked in during January of 1975. It had the first twenty-four track console in Texas, and the lead engineer, Phil York, offered Willie a free day. He took five. What came out was "Red Headed Stranger" — songs running from twenty-five-second interludes to five-minute pieces. Willie had just signed to Columbia for a sixty-thousand-dollar advance, and when the label heard it, they figured he'd handed them a demo. It wasn't. "Blue Eyes Crying in the Rain" off that record became his first number one as a singer. The room's called Audio Dallas now, and it's barely changed since.

RoadyGoat → · 3.8 mi away

Red Headed Stranger 50th anniversary event, downtown Garland RoadyGoat

Fifty years after Willie Nelson cut "Red Headed Stranger" in a Garland studio, the city finally threw the record the party it never got. Here's the kicker: when organizer Jeff Ryan started calling around, he found that locals — even working musicians — had no idea the album was made in their own town. So they fixed that. Two days, one time only. Ray Benson, Rhett Miller, Joshua Ray Walker, and Max and Heather Stalling played the whole album live, backed by a pickup crew they called The Band of Strangers. They rolled in Willie's actual tour bus for photos, screened the old film with Morgan Fairchild on the panel, and the state stamped Garland an official Music Friendly City. Half a century late — but Garland finally said the quiet part out loud. This one's ours.

RoadyGoat → · 3.8 mi away

Red Headed Stranger' by Willie Nelson, recorded at Autumn Sound in Garland RoadyGoat

Everybody wants to give Willie Nelson's outlaw masterpiece to Nashville, or to Austin. Truth is, "Red Headed Stranger" got cut in Garland, Texas — a Dallas suburb — at a room called Autumn Sound. Five days. Four thousand dollars. Willie and his wife Connie dreamed up the whole story on a drive home from Colorado: a preacher on the run after he guns down his cheating wife and her lover. His sister Bobbie played the saloon piano, plain and haunted. When Columbia heard the tapes, they figured it was a rough demo — too bare, too quiet to sell. Then "Blue Eyes Crying in the Rain" went to number one, Willie's first ever. Turns out the label just didn't know what stripped-down courage sounded like.

RoadyGoat → · 3.8 mi away

History of Rowlett

The Day After Christmas Tornado RoadyGoat

On December 26, 2015, as families were enjoying the holiday weekend, the weather took a dark turn. A violent supercell thunderstorm spawned a tornado that touched down west of Sunnyvale and carved a thirteen-mile path northeast. At its peak it was an EF4 with winds estimated at 180 miles per hour, and that worst damage fell in Garland, near Interstate 30 and the President George Bush Turnpike, where most of the storm's eight victims died. The twister then crossed Lake Ray Hubbard and came ashore into the eastern side of Rowlett, doing EF3 damage: homes leveled, cars tossed, the landscape changed in minutes. The aftermath was a scene of devastation, but it was also a moment of profound community strength. Before first responders could even reach every area, neighbors were already checking on each other, clearing debris, and offering shelter. The 'Rowlett Strong' movement that grew from the rubble became a powerful symbol of the city's resolve to rebuild, home by home, street by street.

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The Water That Made the Peninsulas RoadyGoat

Look at a map of Rowlett and the town seems to reach out into the water with long, finger-like peninsulas. Those fingers are the gift, and the doing, of Lake Ray Hubbard. The City of Dallas dammed the East Fork of the Trinity River and let the reservoir fill, finishing the lake around 1971. It was first called Forney Reservoir for the little town downstream, then renamed for Raymond Ellsworth Hubbard, the oilman and civic leader who ran the Dallas Park Board until his death in 1970. Dallas still owns the water through Dallas Water Utilities, even though it sits in Rowlett's backyard. When the lake rose over the old creek bottoms, it left Rowlett wrapped on three sides by water, and the town's population, barely a few thousand into the 1970s, exploded into a lakeside suburb of tens of thousands. Subdivisions like Dalrock crowd the shoreline, and marinas such as Captain's Cove put boats, ramps, and waterfront tables where cotton fields used to drain toward the Trinity. The lake didn't just border Rowlett. It reshaped it into peninsulas. (Source: Texas Water Development Board; Handbook of Texas.)

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The Night After Christmas RoadyGoat

On the night of December 26, 2015, a violent tornado tore out of the dark across the eastern Dallas suburbs. It reached EF4 strength near Garland, where it peaked around 180 mph and lifted vehicles off the elevated ramps where Interstate 30 meets the President George Bush Turnpike. Nine of the storm's ten deaths happened right there, drivers swept off the highway. The tornado then crossed Lake Ray Hubbard and came ashore in eastern Rowlett still carrying EF3 force, slamming neighborhoods near the water with little warning the day after Christmas. In Rowlett alone roughly 300 homes were destroyed and around 1,300 damaged; an elderly man died when his house collapsed around him. Across the whole path, 468 people were hurt. Whole streets lost their roofs and walls in minutes. Years later there were still empty lots where houses once stood, and the town marks the anniversary quietly. If you're driving the eastern side of Rowlett, you're moving through ground that was rebuilt, slab by slab, after one of the deadliest tornadoes the United States saw that year. (Source: National Weather Service; Wikipedia (2015 Garland tornado).)

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Duck Creek, TX

1846

Duck Creek was the name of two communities, sometimes called Old Duck Creek and New Duck Creek, located in northeastern Dallas County; their site was within the present city limits of Garland, fifteen miles northeast of downtown Dallas. The first Duck Creek, at the present junction of Garland Road and Duck Creek, had its beginning as one of the original settlements of the Peters colony . Early settlers were attracted to the area by the many springs along the creek. The first schoolhouse, a log structure built sometime after 1846, was replaced by a frame building in 1852. This second school also served as a meetingplace for the Baptist and Methodist congregations. In 1854 Duck Creek acquired a post office, which it retained until 1866. About 1868 the school was named Duck Creek Academy. Overcrowding caused the school to move into the Grange Hall at an unknown date and later into the Methodist Church. In 1880 a new one-room school was built on the site of the old school. The Masonic and Grange Hall was moved to the school and added onto it as a new wing. Permission to establish a Duck Creek Masonic lodge was granted on September 19, 1873, and a charter was issued on June 7, 1875. In 1874 a store was established on the west bank of the creek, and in 1876 a corn mill was built. Duck Creek acquired a post office again in 1877. By 1884 the community had a district school, three churches, two gristmills, three steam cotton gins, and three general stores. Its population of 100 included three physicians, two teachers, one carpenter and a carpenter-wagonmaker, one blacksmith, and one shoemaker. Two years later the town acquired a patent roller flour mill, which was built on the east side of the creek. The largest business in Duck Creek is said to have been the Grange store, known as the Duck Creek Co-operative Association, which closed in March 1887. In 1886, first the Gulf, Colorado and Santa Fe and then the Dallas and Greenville railroad bypassed Duck Creek. The Santa Fe built a depot about a mile to the east, while the Missouri, Kansas and Texas (which acquired the Dallas and Greenville later in 1886) established a depot less than a mile to the north. Both railroads bought land from William A. Tinsley and laid out towns adjacent to their depots. The community established by the Santa Fe was named Embree, after Kelley H. Embree, a physician, storekeeper, and Duck Creek postmaster. The community laid out by the MK&T took the name Duck Creek, and was also known as New Duck Creek. Thereafter, residents of Old Duck Creek moved to one or the other of the new communities. Sometime in 1886 or early 1887 the Duck Creek Rustler moved and became reincarnated as the Embree Enterprise . On February 1, 1887, the Duck Creek post office was moved to the Santa Fe depot at Embree. The site of New Duck Creek is in Garland south of the Missouri, Kansas and Texas (later the Missouri Pacific) tracks and north of State Street. After the (Old) Duck Creek Rustler moved to Embree, John H. Cullum moved to Duck Creek at the urging of Thomas F. Nash, manager of the Grange store, and established the Duck Creek News , whose first issue appeared on April 8, 1887. Duck Creek remained a shipping point for area farmers. By late October 1887 it had shipped about 2,000 bales of cotton for the season and still had "a large quantity" on hand. New Duck Creek and Embree engaged in an intense rivalry, with several attempts made by one town to take over the other. In April 1887, one or more Duck Creek partisans had a map recorded that gave the whole area the name of Duck Creek. The two towns also obtained injunctions to prevent each other from incorporating. In spite of this, Embree was incorporated on November 12, 1887. Two weeks earlier, on October 29, Congressman Joseph Abbott , who was traveling to Washington for the opening of Congress, stopped at Duck Creek at the request of local residents to look at the situation. Shortly afterward he succeeded in having the post offi

Tsha Handbook → · 3.9 mi away

Garland, TX

1887

Downtown Garland is on State highways 66 and 78, fifteen miles northeast of downtown Dallas in northeastern Dallas County. Duck Creek runs through the city, and Lake Ray Hubbard lies on its eastern border. Garland got its start as a neutral location between the two rival communities of Duck Creek and Embree. One of the original settlements of the Peters Colony , Duck Creek acquired a post office in 1854. In 1886 both the Gulf, Colorado and Santa Fe and the Dallas and Greenville railways bypassed Duck Creek. Two new communities were established near the junction of the railroads: Embree, a mile to the east of Duck Creek along the Santa Fe line, and another community named Duck Creek, a mile northeast along the Dallas and Greenville line, soon to be sold to the Missouri, Kansas and Texas Railway. In early 1887 much of the business district of "Old" Duck Creek was consumed by fire, and the post office was moved to Embree. Embree then set out to incorporate but was accused of illegally counting a portion of Duck Creek's population in order to meet the minimum population required for incorporation. The fight escalated into the courts. In late 1887 Congressman Joseph Abbott settled the issue by creating the town of Garland between the two cities and establishing the post office there. The new town was named for Augustus H. Garland, U. S. attorney general under Grover Cleveland. Local legend holds that the residents of Duck Creek and Embree agreed to the new name because the attorney general had never been to Texas, and nobody knew who he was. During the 1880s the town received gas lighting, and in 1888 a new high school, called Garland College, was built. By 1890 Garland had a population of 478, four churches, three gristmills, three steam cotton gins, a roller flour mill, and several hotels, in addition to other businesses. Garland was incorporated on April 21, 1891. The first mayor was M. Davis Williams, a local merchant, and the town marshal was Tobe Ethridge. The first bank, Citizens Bank, was chartered in 1895. The town had Baptist, Methodist, Christian, and Cumberland Presbyterian congregations, and by 1892 the Masons, Odd Fellows, and Knights of Honor each had a hall. In 1899 a fire destroyed twenty-eight of the thirty businesses in Garland, including the offices of the newspaper, the Garland Daily News . After the destruction of the business section, Garland rebuilt around a town square. Eventually, plank sidewalks and a fountain for watering horses were added. In 1904 the population was 819. By 1914 the community had two banks, three cotton gins, telephone and telegraph connections, three restaurants, an undertaker, and many stores, including those selling jewelry, drugs, and harness. By 1920 the population of Garland was more than 1,400. In 1915 Texas Power and Light was granted a fifty-year franchise to operate in Garland. In 1923 a group of Garland citizens bought a generator and set up a city utility, Garland Power and Light Company, which grew to be the fourth largest municipal utility in Texas. The first electric lights installed in Garland were four streetlights around the courthouse square in 1915, making it one of the few places where the "new" electricity was used. A $100,000 bond was voted in the early 1920s to finance a 2,300-foot well and an overhead storage tank so homes and businesses could have running water. Previously each house had its own well and outhouse. The first car dealerships opened in the 1920s. On May 9, 1927, a tornado destroyed much of the city and killed seventeen people, including a former mayor, S. E. Nicholson. Six years later the Nicholson Memorial Library opened in his honor. In the late 1930s the Craddock food company, which manufactured pickles, and the Byer-Rolnick hat factory, which made Resistol hats, moved to town. The pickle factory, located on West Walnut Street, was eventually demolished and replaced by Garland's main post office. Byer-Rolnick eventually became Hatco. Due to the

Tsha Handbook → · 3.9 mi away

Hill, Anita Dorcas Carraway

1977

Anita Dorcas Carraway Hill, state legislator, was born on August 13, 1928, in Chatfield, Texas, to Archie C. Carraway, a Methodist preacher, and Martha Helen (Butler) Carraway. During the Great Depression the family moved to Arkansas. Anita Carraway later returned to Texas, where she graduated from Marlin High School in 1946. She attended Texas State College for Women (later Texas Woman's University), where she earned a bachelor of arts in journalism in 1950. She was vice-president of her senior class, editor for the student paper Lass-O , and member of Theta Sigma Phi and numerous student clubs and organizations . Prior to graduating she was hired as society editor of the Garland News . By 1952 she was the educational director of the First Methodist Church of Garland, where she was a congregant for the rest of her life. On September 21, 1952, Anita Carraway married Clodius Harris Hill in Garland. Harris Hill was an executive in the Hunt Oil Company and longtime trustee of the Garland school board-the Garland Independent School District's administrative building was named after him. They had two children, Steve and Ginger. Anita Hill served for seventeen-years on the Garland school board, starting in 1972. In 1971, following her successful efforts to save the town's Indian Lake and surrounding green space from development, Hill was appointed to Garland's park board and served as its chair from 1976 to 1977. Indian Lake Park was renamed Anita C. Hill Park at Indian Lake after Hill's death in 2003. Hill worked as a legislative aide to Kenneth Vaughan, Democratic state representative for District 33-D. Following Vaughan's resignation in 1977, Hill ran in a special election to replace him. She defeated her opponent, Republican Mike McCauley, by fewer than 300 votes in a runoff. She campaigned on repealing state taxes on utilities. She was sworn into the Texas House of Representatives on August 11, 1977, during the Sixty-fifth Texas Legislature. In September she was appointed to the committees on Business and Industry and on Health and Welfare. Hill served on numerous committees and sponsored a wide variety of bills throughout her more than fifteen-year-long career as a lawmaker. In the Sixty-sixth and Sixty-seventh legislatures she was vice chair of the Judicial Affairs Committee; in the Sixty-eighth legislature she was vice chair of the Cultural and Historical Resources Committee; in the Seventieth and Seventy-first legislatures she chaired the House Research Organization Steering Committee; and, in her final term in office, the Seventy-second legislature, she was vice chair of the Business and Commerce Committee. Among her legislative achievements were regulations mandating child safety seats in motor vehicles and toughening safety standards for nursing homes. She also supported occupational safety regulations and the restriction of abortion access for the third trimester and opposed the repeal of "blue laws," which required certain businesses to be closed on Sundays, and the repeal of anti-gambling laws. Hill was the first female Texas legislator to switch political parties while in office. She made this change in 1979 in anticipation of Republican party gains at the local and national levels in the 1980 election, in which Ronald Reagan won the presidency. A conservative Democrat who had worked for Barry Goldwater's campaign in 1964, Hill explained that her switch to the GOP was motivated by liberal shifts in the Democratic party and that "the people of my district want conservative representation." Her husband resigned as secretary of the Dallas County Democratic party to support her campaign. In 1981 Hill became embroiled in controversy when she was denied entry to a lunchtime meeting at the private Citadel Club in Austin's Driskill Hotel because of her sex. In response a group of women legislators proposed a resolution stating that no member of the House would attend functions at places that denied entry to any House member.

Tsha Handbook → · 3.9 mi away

A. J. Head Service Station

1947

The Federal Aid Road Act (1916) and the formation of the Texas Highway Department resulted in the creation of Texas Highway 1, or Bankhead Highway. The Bankhead was America's second east-to-west transcontinental highway, which went through several Texas cities, including Garland. Commercial growth and a boom of businesses along the highway boosted Garland's economy for decades.
 A.J. Head, the original owner of the A.J. Head/Humble Station, opened a filling station in 1947. It housed many businesses to serve Bankhead Highway drivers, including a tire shop, auto repair shop, bail bond office, welding shop and discount retail store. Head sold the business in 1957, coinciding with the decreased importance of the Bankhead Highway.
 Still at its original location, the station has received few significant changes over the years. Designed by Robert Otis Lagrone, the two-story brick building was built in the Streamline Moderne style, popular in the 1930s and 1940s. The style emphasized smooth surfaces, horizontal lines, and curved corners. The curved brick wall of the building and the original metal canopy illustrated important characteristics of the style. While the canopy at the front of the building was removed, the steel and horizontal lines emphasized the style's industirual aesthetic. Because of its important place on the Bankhead Highway, the A.J. Head Humble Station shows its important role in Garland's essential economic and industrial growth in the 1940s and 1950s. (2018)

Historical Marker → · 4.2 mi away

Rowlett, City of

1880

Rowlett was first known as Morris, the name given to the post office that was established here in 1880. Austin Morris served as the first postmaster. In 1889, three years after the Greenville & Dallas Railroad (later the MK&T) was built through town, the post office's name was changed to Rowlett. Although the origin of the name is not clear, it may have come from Daniel Owen Rowlett, an early Texas settler who was a surveyor for Mercer's Colony. By the turn of the century, Rowlett had two doctors, a cotton gin, three general stores, a barber shop, blacksmith shop, two churches, a depot, and the post office. Additionally, by 1912 it boasted a bank, a telephone exchange, and a two-story school building. Many more businesses, including a newspaper (the "Rowlett News"), had begun in the town by 1937. The citizens of Rowlett voted to incorporate in 1952, and growth has continued throughout the 20th century. Lake Ray Hubbard, Dallas' chief source of water, was completed in 1971 and borders Rowlett on its east, south, and west sides. The history of the northeastern Dallas County town is a good reflection of the settlement patterns in this part of the state. Texas Sesquicentennial 1836 - 1986

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Herfurth House

1908

Accompanying the agricultural boom in the late 19th century was the influx of immigrant German and Swiss farm families to the northeastern portion of Dallas County. Among the German families buying farms near Rowlett was Johann Christian Herfurth (1835-1914) and his wife, Anna Barbara Etter (1842-1925). One son, John Samuel Herfurth (1879-1958), located the Dallas County farm land and brought his parents here. The farm was purchased in 1908, originally consisted of 151 acres and included a small 3-room house on the property. Soon after obtaining the property, around 1910, Herfurth added two rooms and a hallway to the original house. A second major addition in 1918 produced the basic design of the airplane bungalow house as it exists today. The exterior of the house is a classic craftsman style with strong horizontal lines, a low pitched roof, deep eaves and small panes in the upper window sashes. There is evidence that the contractor relied on plans from Sears, Roebuck & Co. In the 1930s, nationwide research into scientific land management practices increased. J.S. Herfurth followed those developments closely and worked with Dallas County extension service agents to implement new techniques, such as contour plowing and crop rotation. He was named a local farm conservationist and awarded the honor of triple-a farmer. In addition to extensive cotton production, Herfurth was also interested in animal husbandry, particularly the breeding of horses and mules. J.S.’s youngest son, Carl Leroy Herfurth, and his wife, Helen Hall, were the last members of the family to own and occupy the Herfurth homestead.

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Things to Do in Rowlett

historical 16.6 mi away
The Sixth Floor Museum

Where Lee Harvey Oswald fired from. The JFK assassination site at Dealey Plaza.
historical 16.6 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 14.3 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…
historical 7.4 mi away
Southfork Ranch

The filming location of TV's Dallas. JR Ewing lived here.
quirky 10.2 mi away
Southfork Ranch

The Ewing family TV mansion from the Dallas soap opera sits on two hundred acres in Parker Texas and is open for tours every day. JRs bedroom is there. The…
spooky 11.1 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…
food 15.3 mi away
Pecan Lodge

Dallas' best BBQ. The beef rib alone is worth the drive.

Everything Near Rowlett

1701 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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