Ed Ranks Ghost Towns of the DFW Metroplex by Name, Part II

Pay no mind to this picture. This is just a movie set.

By now you know the drill, hopefully:

• This is Part 2 of 2, ranking "Ghost Towns" of the DFW Area by their names.
• Ghost Towns need not be totally vanished from existence, haunted by ghosts, or ruins with an old swinging door saloon that's fallen apart (like the deceptive pic to the right).
• Instead, a ghost town could be as simple as place that used to be an independent settlement with a post office, but has since faded to little more than an old grave yard and church, and sometimes  maybe even a few residents are left (though those residents fall under the zip codes, postal offices, and census-designated places of other nearby towns and cities that survived and swallowed them up).
• Even though I'm giving some random facts and interesting history tidbits, none of that matters in this ranking. I'm only ranking via how cool the name is. Note that this isn't being done in a vacuum though, of place names on their own. Anything which makes the name extra "TEXAS-ey" will help out. So while a hypothetical place named "Yeehaw Rattlesnake Boot Tumbleweed Crick" would not rank high if it were a ghost town of, say, Maine, it is perfectly fit for a name in the DFW Metroplex of Texas. 

Here they are, the top 20. 

20. Union Bower

A bower can be: a) : an attractive dwelling or retreat, or b) a lady's private apartment in a medieval hall or castle. I am already excited about the potential for this ghost town! Especially since it's a UNION Bower! Did some Union solider build a medieval castle for a pretty Southern Belle that he eloped with sometime after the Civil War? If so, I can see why this Dallas County town was eventually abandoned, as Texans are to this day super angry about the Union winning! Stupid rednecks! No, in truth, the "union" had nothing to do with the Civil War, and related to a "Union" Sunday school there (Union referring to the fact that different church denominations shared the same building). Still, that's not a word that's very popular in the south. The town might have also been named "Hawk's Chapel" for a time (a much more awesome name, that would have gotten it ranked higher). Eventually, the fork of the river nearby was rerouted and the farming community was replaced by industrial developments. Union Bower went into oblivion, its land now absorbed by Irving.

19. Birdville

Not what this town is named after at all.

Birdville is certainly an interesting town name. At least it would be if it was named after some awesome bird encounter that happened there. Was this the sight of the world's largest aviary? Nope! Alas, it was named after Bird's Fort, an early fort settlement in Tarrant County. Bird's Fort is, in turn, named after Major Jonathan Bird, who established said fort in September 1841 along the Trinity River, for protection of the settlements along the Texas frontier. Yet it was soon abandoned due to the threat of a Comanche attack. By 1848, a different area to the west was settled (independent of the fort itself), thus the town was born. It was chosen as the first Tarrant County seat the next year (when the county was first established), got a post office in 1851, but in 1856 lost an election to maintain the county seat to the rival "named-after-some-dude's-fort" town of Fort Worth. Fort Worth continued to grow and become the large namesake city of this ranking (the FW, of DFW, duh) while Birdville, well, you know. This whole thing is "ghost towns." Do I need to explain it? When the population of Birdville was only about 100 in 1906, the post office closed. It had a bounce after World War II, but soon faded away again after that. It has since been swallowed up by Haltom City, TX, now a Fort Worth inner suburb.

 18. Poe Prairie

You cannot say that this ghost town has an uninteresting name, because Poe Prairie is definitely interesting. In Parker County, it's named after settler James William Poe who came in the 1870s. And since he put it on a prairie, it became Poe Prairie, I guess. It had a school, but that's long gone and only a cemetery remains. Not the most amazing story, but it's better than just "Poe," and at least it's alliterative. And, per the rules above, the word "Prairie" makes it just feel more TEXAS AF. Yeehaw Rattlesnake Boot Tumbleweed Prairie would be better, but Poe Prairie will do in a hurry. Especially if you think of Edgar Allen Poe reimagined as telling horror stories about old west cowboys. Which would be awesome, by the way.

17. Ozro

I keep reading this as "Orzo," and it makes me hungry for some short-cut pasta that everyone thinks is rice (it's not... did I just blow your mind? It's pasta!). But this isn't Orzo. It's Ozro, and it was named after one of two guys with that name (either Ozro High or Ozro Cheatham, nobody is sure which). It was in Ellis County, but over time it's post office and school closed, residents moved to nearby Maypearl, and now it has a population of exactly 0. An Ozro Road in Maypearl is all that remains. Though a name, it's an interesting and unique name. So I like it, and am putting it here. Deal with it.

16. Kit

The theme music should already be playing in your head.

Not named after the cool car from Knight Rider, instead Kit (not KITT anyway, I suppose) in Dallas County was named after... well... nobody actually knows. Or at least not that I can find any research to confirm. Kit Carson? I dunno. It wasn't even named "Kit" at first. It was named "Gorbett." The only problem with Gorbett (other than it being a terrible name, I mean) is that another town was also named that, so they had to change their name. The knowledge of where the name came from died with the settlers, and eventually the town was absorbed by Irving. Only a cemetery remains nearby a highway intersection. I mean other stuff is there too, but it's not from the ghost town of Kit. There is a Whataburger and a Waffle House where Kit used to be, but I don't think that's relevant to this ranking. 

15. Wardville

Wardville was the first seat of Johnson County, founded in 1854 (or 1855, according to other sources) and named after Thomas William Ward, a Texas Revolution hero. Though chosen by the State legislature to be the seat of power, law dictated (as I've said before) that the seat be at the center of the county. Why? Mostly for ease in voting. So someone eventually realized that they fucked up when making the map and Wardville wasn't the center at all. Therefore, by 1856 (only a year or two later), the seat was moved to Buchanan, TX (also ranked), five miles west. An old wooden courthouse still remains, said to be the oldest in the state. But that doesn't matter much for a place abandoned after one or two years. Maybe the courthouse might still be in mint condition for lack of us. I don't know. Does this seem ranked pretty high to you? Well, there is just something about "Wardville" that works for me. I like it! Even though "Ward" is named after a person, it also has historical meanings related to plots of land. It works!

14.  Stony

Stony, in Denton County, was settled in the late 1850s. It was named after its soil type, which didn't exactly entice settlers to come to till the stone-filled soil. Maybe they should have had a marketing guy work that name. "Fertile Fields" would have certainly encouraged more farmers to come than "Ah shit, you're going to bust all your plows on all this damned stone!" Topping out at 100 residents in 1914, that number fell to about 25 by the 1930s, and there it remained until it vanished from existence in the 1990s. You’d think I’d rank it pretty low because the town name was so bad it made farmers not want to move there. On the contrary, I actually think "Stony" is a great name for a town. It works for me. I don’t have a better explanation as to why. I like it. Stony, TX sounds like a legit place. And, you know, I guess it was.

13. Newberry

Okay, I obviously don't hate the name Newberry (since it's ranked up here). In Parker County, it was settled in 1855.  The Newberrys were one of the families who helped to settle the place, and hence the name. But beyond the community of a few families that propped up there, not much other history about it is recorded. It never even had a post office or anything! A church and cemetery remain, along with a historic marker that is just a little bit longer than what I've typed out here. Still, even though it’s a family name, Newberry works a lot better for a town than, say, Carter. Or it did, at least. I guess it worked about the same, since neither exists anymore. Whatever. Newberry is a perfectly good town name.

12. Buena Vista

"Buena Vista" means "Good View," which is a lazy name, but also better than just being super white and naming it "Good View." At least a Spanish word at least recognizes that Texas once belonged to Spain and Mexico before it was stolen. Buena Vista was in Ellis County, west of Waxahachie (which is a great name and WOULD rank high on this list, only it's not a ghost town since people still live there). Not much info survives on it, and there are at least three other ghost town Buena Vistas across Texas. It had a school with 86 students in 1894, but vanished from maps by the 1970s. Not much else to say. An okay name. Perfectly fine.

11. Bono

This picture is also related to Bono and Texas.

IT'S A BEAUTIFUL DAY! I guess this isn't named after the lead singer of U2. Unless he was a time traveler. Or maybe unless he becomes one in the future. I suppose he could still invent a time machine in the future and go back to settle this place. Anyway, it's in Johnson County. Bono was apparently named by a man called Calvin Jones. Who or what did Calvin Jones really name Bono after (assuming my time travel theory is bad)? No clue. Like others here, it had a post office but the town was eventually bypassed by the railway. Instead of immediately dying after the bypass, Bono actually continued along for a while until the Great Depression finished it off. Only a community center, cemetery, and baptist church remain.

10. Barnesville

This Johnson County ghost town could be a knockoff version of Farmsville (well, maybe if would be if it was spelled Barnsville without the extra e), but instead was a farm community settled in the 1850s. It grew to have a cotton gin and post office sometime before 1873. Its moderate growth was fueled by it being on the Waxahachie-Cleburne stagecoach line. As with any of the towns on this ranking where I mention how it was conveniently located along the old roads and coach trails... the coming of the train tracks mostly decided which towns would live and which would die. Barnesville was bypassed by the railway, naturally, and it's population of 150 in the mid 1880s began to vanish. Though ludicrously close to the ghost town of Ozro (above on this ranking), it's actually on the other side of the Johnson-Ellis County line, so it was basically absorbed into nearby Alvarado, rather than into Maypearl like Ozro. There is still a Barnesville Church and Cemetery, but otherwise... this town is now just farmland in TX.

9. Oasis

You've got to be pretty bold to name a place "Oasis," as that implies a sort of paradise in the middle of a shitty desert. Was Oasis really a beautiful place, better than everything else around it in Dallas County? Not really. It was notable enough in the 1890s to have its own general store and cemetery, but by the end of the 1940s its population was 20 people. The city of Dallas eventually annexed it. Which makes this Oasis as meaningless and forgettable as the shitty band. Yeah, Oasis sucks. Deal with it.

8. Dido

Giving that "let's hook up" look to Aeneas, presumably.

Dido! Perhaps you know her as an English singer-songwriter. Well, the town is named after the same woman who that singer is presumably named after, the mythical founder and first queen of the Phoenician city-state of Carthage (modern Tunisia). Dido is a notable character in Virgil's epic poem, the Aeneid. So yes, good name! Anyway, Dido the town was founded in Tarrant County around 1848, and grew to have a post office, school, church, and cemetery. Alas, repeating what I've probably said a dozen times before... the railroad came by in the 1890s, and when it bypassed Dido, it's fate was sealed. Basically all that remains now is the pioneer cemetery. One source says that the Methodist church there is "the oldest" in Tarrant County, but looking at a picture of it, the church there is definitely a modern church and not any one that was created in the 19th Century.

7. Erudia

Now considered part of Frisco in Collin County (Collin county has a TON of ghost towns, if you haven't yet noticed), the settlement was said to be named after a character in a book that the town's founder, author Rev. William Allen, he had written in 1890. The story is: "Erudia, the Foreign Missionary to Our World."  Talk about a crazy town name origin! He made up a fictional character and so fell in love with it that he named a town after it. Not much is known about it, and it quickly vanished in the first few years of the 20th Century (the post office changed its name to "Frisco" in 190), being left off maps and its population moving elsewhere. Looks like you can buy a copy of the book for $300 if this quirky bit of history really interests you. On it's own, the name is sort of unique and wacky. Knowing the story behind the name drives it up to lucky 7.

6. Twin Wells

The only thing better than founding a town where there is a well is a place where there are TWO WELLS! I'm moderately excited to learn more about this place! Okay... so... it's in Dallas County. Two wells (YESSSS!) stood here on the sides of the Eagle Ford Trail, which passed along the South Bank of the Trinity River. It prospered in the late 1800s, mainly as a farming community. The population would peak around 130 in the 1940s, but as they built highways it was eventually right-of-wayed out of existence. A bridge over the Trinity remains, as does a park and a gold course that were named after it. I like this name because it sounds exactly like the type of name an old west town would have, if said town had two wells in it. Adios, wells! Both of you!

5. Mustang

I SAID "YEEHAW!"

This settlement in Denton County, dating to the 1850s, was either named for wild horses nearby (which is awesome and a super yeehaw Texas thing), or wild "mustang grapes" that grew along the creek (which would, comparatively, be lame and a much less super yeehaw Texas thing). From 1876 to 1907 it had a post office, though it's 1876 population was a mere 75. As with other towns on this list, the Great Depression put a final nail in the coffin of the few remaining (two) businesses that were left  by the 1930s. A tragic fate for a town with a badass Texas-sounding name. Mustang, Pennsylvania would be boring. But Mustang, Texas? Yeah. It works! I'm ranking this high under the assumption that it's named after free-roaming horses of the American West, and NOT after some stupid grapes.

4. Frognot

Well this is a really weird-ass town name! Frognot! FROGNOT! In Collin County, freakin' FROGNOT was somewhat mysteriously founded sometime around 1913 (when the first school was founded there), and grew to also include a store. A store and a school! They're both gone now, and all that remains of Frognot is a water supply standpipe (to supply water to nearby Blue Ridge). Where the hell did this name come from? Apparently, it's related to Frogs, but nobody knows for sure. One theory goes: "The area had an abundance of frogs. They killed the frogs and became known as Frognot." Only in Texas, man. Only in Texas. By the way, there is also a different town just called "Frog."

3. Pluto

This dude!

YES! YES! A great name! The god of the underworld! (Pluto to the Romans, Hades to he Greeks). You've got to be super awesome to name your town (in Ellis County, by the way) after the god of the dead and underworld. What sort of message does it send if you name your town after the god of the dead? I'm not sure, but I think it's a sweet one! Like Diet Dr. Pepper. It wasn't named after the maybe-sort-of-planet, since that wasn't even discovered back then. It got its post office in 1894 and two years later there were 200 Plutonians (YES!) living there. Alas, the post office closed in 1905, which as you can tell by this ranking is a sure sign that the population will drift away too. By the 1930s there were only 24 Plutonians left. It no longer appears on maps, though it was said to still have a population of 15 Plutonians in 2000. I just like saying Plutonians.

2. Trueloves

Trueloves the greatest thing in the world. Except for a nice MLT, a mutton, lettuce and tomato sandwich, where the mutton is nice and lean and the tomato is ripe. They're so perky, I love that! But that's not what he said! He distinctly said "to blave." And, as we all know, "to blave" means "to bluff," huh? So you're probably playing cards, and he cheated... *ahem*... Where was I? Right. In Johnson County, To Blave was named after two brothers named "Truelove," not actually after any romantic story about love being found here. Lemuel B. Truelove and Jonathan Richard Truelove, to be specific. They bought the land and invested in it to build some cotton gins. Truelove School was built in 1907. Though it appeared on some old maps, its distance from the railroad never really gave it a chance to grow into anything. It no longer exists on any maps, but would likely be somewhere between Alvarado and Venus along the modern route 67. It might just be a surname city, but what a name it is! Bring back Trueloves!

1. Climax

Self-explanatory, I presume.

This town in Collin County had an AWESOME name. The town grew (or climaxed, rather... har har!) in the 1890s to have its own post office, churches, schools, cotton mills, etc. Yet in 1901 they took the post office away and the climax was over, with only shame about the drunken hookup of its existence remaining. The population has been about 40 for the last century, so again... it's not one of those 100% gone towns. But if you try to search for these two words together, you're probably going to find a lot more about Alexis Texas than you are about this ghost town.