Site of the Dr. D. W. Gilbert Homestead
Irving, Dallas County, Texas
Marker Inscription
Site of the Dr. D. W. Gilbert Homestead Mississippi native Daniel Webster "D.W." Gilbert (1854-1930) was one of three brothers who became Texas doctors. At age 20, he joined his brother, Franklin Monroe Gilbert, in Grapevine and began to study medicine under him. In 1879, he enrolled at Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri, graduating in 1881 with a medical degree. Returning to Texas, D.W. wed Marietta Boardman in 1882. In 1886, then a widower with one son, D.W. married Fannie Trigg Roberts, a widow who also had one son. They later lived near this site in a large house he had built on a hill. The couple had nine other children; four of the boys became doctors. From a small office he built on a corner of this land, Dr. Gilbert served his patients in the surrounding communities. He later purchased additional land and raised livestock, farmed, planted a peach orchard and operated the Gilbert Dairy, utilizing progressive farming methods. Later, he moved his office to Sowers, where he also operated a drugstore, mixing medicines and training others to become pharmacists. When the town of Irving was laid out in 1903, Dr. Gilbert moved his office to a space near the local bank, which he helped organize. He later moved his office to the second story of the bank building. Dr. Gilbert continued to practice medicine in Irving until his death in 1930. Fannie Gilbert lived on the farmstead until she passed away in 1942. The home remained near this site until the 1950s, when it was demolished. Dr. Gilbert was one of the most influential early citizens in and around Irving. He is remembered for his compassion, generosity and tireless commitment to helping others. (2004)
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
Mississippi-born Daniel Webster Gilbert trained under his physician brother before earning a medical degree in St. Louis and returning to Texas in 1881. From an office on his hilltop homestead he served the scattered communities around what became Irving, later farming with progressive methods, running the Gilbert Dairy, and training pharmacists. When Irving was platted in 1903 he moved his practice into town and helped organize its bank, doctoring there until his death in 1930.
Why it matters
His life traces how a country doctor could become the civic backbone of a raw settlement as it grew into a town.
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Related people
- · Daniel Webster Gilbert
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Sowers Cemetery
Irving, TX
This Irving-area burial ground began in 1868 with the graves of a woman and her daughter, now nameless, laid to rest on Seveir Smalley's land. In 1874 Edmund D. Sowers and his wife Freelove donated an adjoining acre as a public cemetery, and Sowers raised an imposing family monument from the sale of his own land. Many of the area's pioneer settlers lie buried here, in a plot still tended by the Sowers Cemetery Association.
Daniel Webster Gilbert, M. D.
Irving, TX
Mississippi-born Daniel Webster Gilbert came to Texas in 1874 and, after earning his medical degree in Missouri, practiced in the small communities around Dallas County. He farmed 1,500 acres at Sowers—planting a peach orchard and running a dairy—before settling in Irving in 1903 as one of its first physicians and a civic leader. He is buried here among his family.
Sowers Community
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By 1856 Edmund and Freelove Sowers, newcomers from Illinois, had settled this corner of Dallas County, where neighbors farmed, hunted, and cut timber and Ed worked as a blacksmith. His general store, post office, and schoolhouse in the 1870s and '80s drew physicians and families until a small crossroads community — famous for its Fourth of July picnics and ballgames — took shape. Sustained by dairy and poultry, Sowers survived until Irving annexed it in the 1950s, leaving only its cemetery behind.
St. Luke Catholic Church
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Catholic worship in this area dates to the 1860s, when Mass was said in private homes; by tradition, early parishioners even pulled the seats from their buggies to serve as Sunday pews. When Irving was founded in 1903, its developers donated a town lot for the Catholic church, and St. Luke's first frame sanctuary rose the next year. The congregation grew steadily through three churches, attaining parish status in 1947 and adding a school and convent in the 1950s.