Benbrook, Texas: The Man Who Brought the Railroad

Benbrook, just southwest of Fort Worth, carries the name of James M. Benbrook, an Indiana-born settler who arrived in Tarrant County around eighteen seventy-four and spent years lobbying the Texas and Pacific Railway to extend its line through the area. His persuasion paid off in eighteen seventy-six, when the rails came through and the community was renamed in his honor.

A post office followed in eighteen eighty. For decades Benbrook remained a quiet farming settlement, until repeated flooding on the Trinity River finally prompted the Army Corps of Engineers to act. Construction on a dam on the Clear Fork of the Trinity began in May nineteen forty-seven, and the lake began filling in September nineteen fifty-two.

The reservoir that filled in behind it gave the area a lake and a new identity, and Benbrook grew into the suburb it is today.