Kit Community
Irving, Dallas County, Texas
Marker Inscription
Virginia natives John W. and Jestine Gorbit had a farm in this area by 1850. A settlement known as Gorbit grew up around it and became a stop on a pre-Civil War postal route. In 1855, Jonathan Story moved here from Illinois with his wife and 13 children. Story's son, Isaac "Ike," who later returned to Illinois for several years, settled in Gorbit with his wife and children in 1873. He opened a store and in 1889 established a post office; his second wife, Mary Elizabeth, was the first postmaster. Because of confusion with a similarly named town, the Gorbit post office and settlement were renamed Kit in 1894. Residents established Kit Cemetery in 1896 near Ike Story's store. Early area schools included one that began in the late 1850s, with Hezekiah Lucas as teacher. Mark Callister Lively opened a school in 1890. Lively School served the Kit Community and functioned as the worship space for the area's first Catholic and Church of Christ congregations. Kit residents established Kit School in 1902. The Town of Irving was founded in 1903 west of the community, along the tracks of the Rock Island Railroad. Some of Kit's businesses and churches moved to the new townsite. The post office moved to Irving in 1904. Irving residents petitioned the legislature for a school district in 1909, and the Kit and Lively schools ecame the Irving Independent School District. Kit maintained its own identity for several more years, but by the 1940s, its once agricultural character had vanished into the growing City of Irving and the Dallas-Fort Worth metropolitan area. Today in Kit Cemetery, which is adjacent to Oak Grove Cemetery, are found the names of pioneer amilies - Story, Smith, Cox and many others - who contributed to the growth and development of Irving. (2005)
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
John W. and Jestine Gorbit farmed here by 1850, and a settlement called Gorbit grew up around them as a stop on a pre–Civil War postal route. After Ike Story opened a store and post office in 1889, confusion with a similarly named town led to the settlement being renamed Kit in 1894, and residents added a cemetery and schools. When the railroad town of Irving was founded nearby in 1903, Kit's businesses, churches, and post office drifted to the new townsite, and by the 1940s the community had faded into the growing metropolis.
Why it matters
Kit is one of the countless rural crossroads communities absorbed and erased by the rise of metropolitan North Texas.
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Related people
- · John W. Gorbit
- · Jestine Gorbit
- · Isaac "Ike" Story
- · Mark Callister Lively
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
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Old Kit Cemetery
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Near the forks of the Trinity River, mid-1800s settlers built the little community of Gorbit, later renamed Kit, complete with a store, a post office, and the merchant-postmaster Ike Story. The cemetery began in 1896 when a family passing through buried their sick child in a grove on David Britain's land, and Britain donated the ground for a community burial place and an adjoining church lot. Early settlers stepped off their own plots by eye, and today Civil War–era veterans, immigrant French, German, and Belgian families, and pioneers like Aunt Kit King rest here as Irving has grown up around them.