Dalworthington Gardens
Dalworthington Gardens, Tarrant County, Texas
Marker Inscription
THE CITY OF DALWORTHINGTON GARDENS BEGAN AS A RESULT OF PRESIDENT FRANKLIN D. ROOSEVELT’S DEPRESSION-ERA POLICIES. ROOSEVELT SUPPORTED THE “BACK-TO-THE-LAND” MOVEMENT, ENCOURAGING URBAN WORKERS TO LIVE ON AND CULTIVATE RURAL PROPERTY. ROOSEVELT SIGNED THE NATIONAL INDUSTRIAL RECOVERY ACT INTO LAW IN 1933; IT AUTHORIZED THE ESTABLISHMENT OF A SUBSISTENCE HOMESTEAD PROGRAM. WHILE VISITING THE ARLINGTON AREA, FIRST LADY ELEANOR ROOSEVELT SAW THIS AREA AS A POSSIBLE SITE FOR THE HOMESTEAD PROJECT. IN DECEMBER 1933, A CORPORATION WAS FORMED FOR A STATE CHARTER AND TITLED DALWORTHINGTON GARDENS, INC. (COMBINING THE NAMES OF NEARBY DALLAS, FORT WORTH, AND ARLINGTON). EARLY THE NEXT YEAR, THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT BOUGHT PROPERTY SOUTH OF ARKANSAS LANE NEAR ARLINGTON. BY JUNE, CIVIL WORKS ADMINISTRATION WORKERS ARRIVED TO CLEAR THE AREA FOR 80 DEVELOPMENT SITES. ONLY PEOPLE FROM THE DALLAS OR FORT WORTH AREAS WOULD QUALIFY TO LIVE IN DALWORTHINGTON GARDENS. BY MAY 1935, MOST OF THE CONSTRUCTION WAS COMPLETE. HOWEVER, APPLICANTS THAT MOVED INTO THE HOMES HAD TO DEAL WITH MANY ISSUES, INCLUDING LACK OF GAS, FAULTY WATER AND SEWAGE PIPING, AND UNFENCED PROPERTY. RESIDENTS, HOWEVER, WORKED TOGETHER TO BUILD A TIGHT-KNIT COMMUNITY. THEY SOON ESTABLISHED A COMMUNITY HOUSE THAT BECAME A CENTER OF ACTIVITY. IN 1949, RESIDENTS PETITIONED TO HAVE THE COLONY INCORPORATED INTO A TOWN. TODAY, THOUGH SURROUNDED BY ARLINGTON AND PANTEGO IN THE THRIVING DALLAS-FORT WORTH METROPLEX, DALWORTHINGTON GARDENS REMAINS THE ONLY SUBSISTENCE HOMESTEAD PROJECT EXISTING AS AN AUTONOMOUS COMMUNITY IN TEXAS.
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
Dalworthington Gardens grew directly out of Franklin Roosevelt's Depression-era faith in the "back-to-the-land" movement, authorized by the 1933 National Industrial Recovery Act's subsistence homestead program. After First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt saw promise in the Arlington area, a corporation was chartered in December 1933—its name stitched from Dallas, Fort Worth, and Arlington—and Civil Works Administration crews cleared 80 homestead sites. Despite early woes of missing gas and faulty plumbing, residents forged a tight-knit colony that incorporated as a town in 1949.
Why it matters
It survives as the only New Deal subsistence-homestead colony in Texas to endure as an autonomous community, a rare living relic of one of the era's boldest social experiments.
The story behind this marker
AI contextThe era
The early 1930s were the depths of the Great Depression, and the country was casting about for ways to put people back on their feet. Among the ideas that gained real traction was the "back-to-the-land" movement — the belief that urban workers, battered by unemployment, might steady their lives by living on and cultivating rural property, growing much of their own food while holding what work they could.
Franklin D. Roosevelt embraced that vision. In 1933 he signed the National Industrial Recovery Act, and among its many provisions was the authorization of a subsistence homestead program — a federal effort to build planned communities where families could put down roots on small plots of land. It was one of the New Deal's boldest and most experimental gestures: the government not merely relieving hardship but designing whole new places for people to live.
North Texas, in the growing corridor between Dallas and Fort Worth, offered open land and a population in need. Into that setting came an idea that would leave a community still standing today.
People & events
The spark, according to the marker, came from Eleanor Roosevelt. Visiting the Arlington area, the First Lady saw promise in this stretch of North Texas as a site for a homestead project — a reminder of how personally involved the era's leading figures could be in the New Deal's experiments.
Events moved quickly. In December 1933 a corporation was formed to seek a state charter, and it took a name stitched together from its neighbors: Dal-worth-ington, blending Dallas, Fort Worth, and Arlington. Early the next year the federal government purchased land south of Arkansas Lane near Arlington, and by June, Civil Works Administration crews arrived to clear the ground for eighty development sites. Only people from the Dallas or Fort Worth areas would qualify to live there.
The reality that greeted the first families was harder than the plan. When most construction was finished by May 1935, homesteaders moved into houses that lacked gas, suffered faulty water and sewage lines, and sat on unfenced lots. What they did next is the heart of the story: rather than scatter, they worked together, built a community house that became the center of local life, and forged a tight-knit colony. In 1949 the residents petitioned to incorporate as a town.
Its place in the American story
The subsistence homestead program was one of the New Deal's most idealistic experiments, and most of its colonies did not survive as the distinct communities their planners imagined — absorbed into surrounding cities, converted to other uses, or simply faded. That makes Dalworthington Gardens genuinely remarkable: it endures as the only subsistence homestead project in Texas to survive as an autonomous, self-governing community.
Its survival is a living case study in a question that still matters — whether government can successfully design a community from scratch, and what it takes for one to last. The answer here seems to lie less in the federal blueprint, with all its faulty plumbing and missing utilities, than in the residents themselves, who chose to stay and govern their own affairs.
Today the little city sits ringed by Arlington and Pantego inside the sprawling Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex, an island of Depression-era intent inside one of America's busiest regions. It is a rare place where you can still stand inside an idea the New Deal tried out on the whole nation.
If you visit
Come here understanding that you are inside a New Deal experiment that actually worked. Dalworthington Gardens is small and residential, folded into the metroplex so completely that a casual driver might pass through without realizing it began as a federal homestead colony. Slow down; the story is in the layout as much as any single building.
Notice how the community sits as its own incorporated town despite being surrounded by much larger Arlington and Pantego — that independence is itself the artifact. The residents who petitioned to incorporate in 1949 were insisting on the identity their founders had planned, and that decision is why the place still has a name of its own.
If you're touring the New Deal's Texas legacy, this makes a thought-provoking stop on a Dallas–Fort Worth trip. Pair it with a broader look at the region's Depression-era history and let yourself consider the ambition on display: a whole community, conjured from open land by a government betting that families given a plot of earth could rebuild their lives. Here, uniquely in Texas, they did — and stayed.
Written by AI to add context, grounded in the marker’s inscription and the historical record. The inscription above is the original, unaltered text.
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Related people
- · Franklin D. Roosevelt
- · Eleanor Roosevelt
Themes & tags
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