Farmers Branch: Dallas County's Oldest Settlement

Farmers Branch holds the distinction of being the oldest surviving settlement in Dallas County, established in eighteen forty-three around the Peters Colony land grant. Thomas Keenan, Isaac Webb, and William Cochran arrived in eighteen forty-two and received original land grants here. Cochran gave the community its name after earlier calling it Mustang Branch, for the wild grapes growing along the creek.

On May fifth, eighteen forty-five, Isaac Webb established the first formal church in Dallas County here, and that same year Farmers Branch housed the first office of the Texan Land and Emigration Company, which was actively recruiting settlers from Europe and the eastern United States. The Keenan Cemetery, one of the earliest in Dallas County, still stands.