page_title: Lancaster, Texas
section_title: Progress and challenges
hierarchical_section_title: Lancaster, Texas / History / Progress and challenges
caption_attribution_description: English: Historic MKT Depot and Rose Garden in Lancaster, Texas. Photo taken by Lynnette Lakey Taff on August 28, 2005.
context_page_description: Lancaster is a city in Dallas County, Texas, United States. The population was 36,361 at the 2010 census. Founded in 1852 as a frontier post, Lancaster is one of Dallas County's earliest settlements. Today, it is a suburban community located in the Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex, approximately 15 miles south of Downtown Dallas.
  Lancaster is part of the Best Southwest area, which includes Lancaster, Cedar Hill, DeSoto, and Duncanville.
context_section_description: During the American Civil War, the Tucker, Sherrod & Company contracted with the State of Texas to manufacture replicas of the .44 caliber Colt Dragoon from a factory on West Main Street in Lancaster. John M. Crockett, former mayor of Dallas and lieutenant governor of Texas, served as superintendent of the arms factory. In the early years of Reconstruction, a drought crippled the economy to such an extent that few residents could afford more than the most basic of necessities. It would be well into the 1870s before the economy fully recovered, due in large part to the town's proximity to heavily trafficked cattle trails. The first public well was dug in the city of the town square in 1876. Fires destroyed parts of the square in 1877, 1889, and again in 1918, each time being promptly rebuilt. Local telephone service came to Lancaster in 1881. Lancaster was incorporated on May 5, 1886. One year later, the Lancaster Herald newspaper began printing.
  In December 1888, Lancaster's train depot opened as a stop on the Dallas and Waco Railway. In 1891, it became part of the Missouri–Kansas–Texas Railroad (MKT) line, running from Dallas to the Gulf Coast of Texas. The Lancaster Tap Railroad, completed in 1890, connected the MKT line in Lancaster with the Dallas-Houston line of the Houston and Texas Central Railway (H&TC) in Hutchins, 4.5 miles away. It operated for 44 years. Rene Paul "R.P." Henry opened the first official bank in 1889. By 1897, the town had a public school, Masonic Temple, a chapter of the International Order of Odd Fellows (IOOF), and a variety of Christian churches. From 1898 to 1901, Texas Christian University founder Randolph Clark established Randolph College in Lancaster. After its closure, the facilities were used continuously until they burned in a 1912 fire.
caption: Lancaster's Historic MKT Depot and Rose Garden
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