Rockwall County
Rockwall, Rockwall County, Texas
Marker Inscription
First settled in the 1840s, this region was a part of Kaufman County until 1873, when Rockwall County was created. With an area of 147 square miles, this is the smallest of Texas' 254 counties. The county and city of Rockwall were named for an underground formation of rock discovered in the early 1850s. Crossed by the Missouri, Kansas & Texas Railroad, Rockwall County is an area of fertile farmland. The location here of the aluminum industry and the creation of Lake Ray Hubbard from the East Fork of the Trinity River diversified the local economy in recent years. (1976)
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
First settled in the 1840s, this region remained part of Kaufman County until Rockwall County was created in 1873. At just 147 square miles, it is the smallest of Texas' 254 counties, and both county and town take their name from a curious underground rock formation discovered in the early 1850s. Crossed by the Missouri, Kansas & Texas Railroad, it long thrived as fertile farmland.
Why it matters
Rockwall County's story blends frontier settlement, a geological curiosity, and the arrival of the railroad that shaped so many nineteenth-century Texas communities.
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Related events
- · Creation of Rockwall County (1873)
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Central National Road of the Republic of Texas
Rockwall, TX
Seeking to knit its scattered settlements together, the Republic of Texas Congress authorized the Central National Road in February 1844 — a 30-foot roadway to be cleared of stumps taller than a foot. Surveyor George W. Stell platted the route from the Trinity River near present-day Dallas northeast to the Red River, connecting a southern road toward Austin and San Antonio with a U.S. military highway running north to St. Louis. Pioneers soon settled along it, founding the towns of Heath and Rockwall.
City of Rowlett
Rowlett, TX
Rowlett began as Morris, the name of its 1880 post office, and took its present name in 1889—possibly for early surveyor Daniel Owen Rowlett—three years after the Greenville & Dallas (later MK&T) railroad arrived. By the early 1900s it had doctors, stores, churches, a depot, a bank, and a two-story school, and its citizens voted to incorporate in 1952. The completion of Lake Ray Hubbard in 1971 reshaped the town's borders as Dallas's suburban growth pushed outward.
Lavon
Lavon, TX
Drawn by the rich Blackland Prairie soil and Bear Creek's water, settlers reached the Lavon area in the 1850s, and the town proper took root when the railroad arrived in 1886. Originally called Thompson or Thompson Switch after early postmaster and merchant Elbert Thompson, it was renamed Lavon for his son to avoid confusion with another town. WPA crews built a school here in the late 1930s, and in the 1950s Lavon Dam turned the area into a fishing and boating retreat—one restaurant even appeared in the 1967 film Bonnie and Clyde.
Sachse
Sachse, TX
Before the railroad arrived, this stretch of Dallas County prairie was ranch and farm land worked by a handful of settlers. In 1886 landowner William Sachse deeded a right-of-way to the Gulf, Colorado and Santa Fe Railroad, which in return platted a townsite and named the depot for him. The village stayed tiny for decades—drawing water from shallow wells and relying on the county for roads and law—until residents incorporated in 1956 largely to qualify for district water, running early city government out of a small cinder-block pump station on this spot.