Bartonville

Before it was a town, Bartonville was one piece of the Chinn's Chapel settlement that Elisha Chinn established in 1853. The Handbook of Texas says that settlement eventually split into three small communities: Shiloh, Waketon and Bartonville. It dates Bartonville's settlement to 1878 and says that by 1890 its twenty-five residents had a general store, a gristmill and a cotton gin, all owned by the Barton family. A post office opened in 1886 and was discontinued in 1905, and in 1933 the place had an estimated three hundred people and one business.

What the plaque says

Bartonville The town of Bartonville grew out of early post-Texas Revolution settlements in Denton County. Denton Creek, which split into the Loving Branch and the Sharps Branch, provided fresh water to the town. Early subsistence farmers found fertile sandy soil for their crops, which included peanuts, wheat, corn, cotton and barley. In 1881, two brothers, Bentley B. Barton (1849–1905) and James M. Barton (1840–1893) purchased ten acres near the southeast corner of the A. R. Loving Survey. Situated along the Old Wagon Trail (FM 407) and the crossroad between Denton, Grapevine and Lewisville, the site proved to be a valuable center of commerce. Bentley's store prospered, selling goods and milling wheat grown by local farmers. The town was first known as "Barton's Mill," then changed to Bartonville by 1883. With the store as its hub, the community grew with the help of founding families: Breeding, Broom, Jeter and McMakin. Under the care of its numerous owners, for 130 years, the Bartonville Store proved to be a lasting center of local commerce for the community and a landmark identifier for the town. In 1960, to prevent annexation by the city of Irving, Bartonville residents voted to incorporate the town. The borders of the newly incorporated town made it the largest in the county with nearly 30 square miles which included present Double Oak and Copper Canyon. In 1964, Bartonville was disincorporated and in 1973 a smaller geographical town was reincorporated with the Bartonville Store still at its hub. The store was permanently closed in 2013 but is viewed as the original cornerstone of this rural community. (2016)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Denton County Courthouse-on-the-Square — 9.7 mi
  An 1896 courthouse by W. C. Dodson in Denton limestone, pink granite and two sandstones, restored in 2004, now a free county museum on a lawn holding the grave of John B. Denton.
• Fort Worth Stockyards — 23 mi
  The brick-street cattle market where Armour and Swift built packing plants in 1902, now a National Register district with a Coliseum, a museum and a longhorn drive twice a day.
• Tarrant County Courthouse — 25 mi
  A pink-granite courthouse of 1895 on the bluff where the Army set up Fort Worth in 1849, in a county named for the man who led the 1841 attack on the Native villages of Village Creek.
• Kimbell Art Museum — 26 mi
  Louis Kahn's cycloid-vaulted museum of 1972, built from Kay Kimbell's bequest and joined in 2013 by Renzo Piano's pavilion for the exhibitions the Kahn galleries could not hold.

More markers nearby

• Chinn's Chapel Methodist Church — 2.8 mi
• Argyle — 4.3 mi
• Flower Mound — 5.7 mi
• 1848 Denton County Seat — 6.0 mi