Florence Ranch Home
Mesquite, Dallas County, Texas
Marker Inscription
David W. (1848 - 1932) and Julia Savannah (Beaty) Florence (1850 - 1914) built the first portion of this ranch house in 1871-72 after moving here from Van Zandt County. Elaborate wood trim decorates the gallery of the simple frame structure. The house was enlarged by the 1890s, when the Florence homestead covered 730 acres. After Florence retired in 1908, his son Emet (1885 - 1963) and Emet's wife Perle (Curtis)) (1889 - 1976) continued to run the ranch, known as Meadow View Farm. RTHL - 1978
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
David and Julia Florence built the first part of this frame ranch house in 1871–72 after moving from Van Zandt County, and by the 1890s their homestead — dressed up with elaborate wood trim on its gallery — spread across 730 acres. Their son and his wife carried on the operation, known as Meadow View Farm, into the 20th century. The house is a survivor of the ranching life that dominated post–Civil War Texas.
Why it matters
Family ranch houses like this document the spread of stock-raising and homesteading that defined the American West in the decades after the Civil War.
Own a business near here? Add it to the map.
Related people
- · David W. Florence
- · Julia Savannah Beaty Florence
- · Emet Florence
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Site of Galloway Farmstead
Mesquite, TX
Confederate veteran Benjamin Franklin Galloway brought his family from Tennessee to Texas in 1872 and bought 101 acres near Duck Creek, raising crops, horses, mules, and cattle. He built up a home place and a Blackland Prairie hay business whose Dallas customers included the Ringling Brothers Circus, while his son Bedford Forest later served as mayor of Mesquite for over a decade. Designated a Recorded Texas Historic Landmark in 1973, the house was eventually moved to rural Sunnyvale to save it from encroaching development.
La Prada Drive Church of Christ
Dallas, TX
This Church of Christ congregation began meeting in members' homes at the close of the 19th century and in 1907 bought property near what became Fair Park, worshipping in a white frame building for decades as street names—and its own name—changed around it. It helped found a sister congregation in Oak Cliff in 1949, relocated to Bruton Road in 1954, and followed its members to northeast Dallas, dedicating a new building on La Prada Drive in 1979. It preserves the Restoration Movement traditions of elder-led governance and a cappella singing.
First Baptist Church of Sunnyvale
Sunnyvale, TX
Chartered as New Hope Baptist Church on July 3, 1904 with thirteen members under Dr. James B. Gambrell of the Baptist General Convention of Texas, this congregation grew alongside the community around it. When the surrounding settlements incorporated as the City of Sunnyvale in 1953, the church eventually took the town's name, and in 1978 it moved to its present site.
Z. Motley Cemetery
Mesquite, TX
Zachariah Motley came from Kentucky to this part of Dallas County in 1856, bringing his large family and the people he held in slavery to settle a homestead carved from the Crittenden Survey. The family cemetery began with the 1863 burial of a daughter and remained in use for generations. Among its roughly twenty-five graves lie both Motley relatives and the enslaved people whose forced labor built the family's fortunes.