City of Aledo

Aledo's first boom was a railroad town's. The Handbook of Texas says Georgia settlers called the place Parker's Station until it took the name of a Texas and Pacific official's hometown in Illinois, and a post office opened in 1882. By 1915 a steam cotton gin, a corn mill, a bank and twenty-one businesses made it eastern Parker County's retail center, and about 400 people lived there in the early 1920s. Incorporation came in 1963. Growth surged from the mid-1970s with Fort Worth's expansion, to 1,027 residents and twenty-three businesses in 1980.

What the plaque says

City of Aledo In 1849, the U. S. Army built Fort Worth to establish a line of defense against Indian raids and also to protect Indian lands from settlement. By 1855, farms, ranches and small settlements dotted eastern Parker County and the frontier encroached into hunting lands inhabited for years by Comanche and Kiowa tribes. By 1856, sufficient settlement had taken place and Parker County was created. When the Texas and Pacific Railroad laid tracks in 1879, the community of Aledo was established. At first, the community was known as Parker Station, but was changed in 1882 to Aledo, named after Aledo, Illinois, the hometown of a railroad official. By the beginning of the 20th century, Aledo was the commercial center of east Parker County with business development near the train station and along north and south front streets. There were two water-powered mills in operation near Aledo. The transcontinental Bankhead Highway bypassed downtown Aledo in the 1920s, but the route currently establishes the northern boundary of the future city limits of the City of Aledo. By 1960, Aledo was growing because engineers and professionals from the bomber plant in Fort Worth wanted to live in a small community. On May 8, 1963, Aledo was incorporated as a city with 550 residents. The initial city government in 1963 consisted of Mayor Robert Daugherty and commissioners Felix Reynolds and Joe Whitmire. Citizens Jack Holt and Dub Bearden were also principal promoters to have Aledo recognized as a city. Since then, Aledo has continued to grow and prosper as reflected in its slogan, "Rich Heritage, Dynamic Future." (2014)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Chandor Gardens — 13 mi
  A portrait painter's English-and-Chinese garden rooms, blasted and planted from a bare 3.5-acre hillside in Weatherford beginning in 1936, abandoned after 1978 and reopened by the city in 2002.
• National Cowgirl Museum and Hall of Fame — 14 mi
  A hall of fame begun in Hereford in 1975 to honor rodeo women, widened in 1977 to Western heritage, and housed in Fort Worth's Cultural District since 2002.
• Kimbell Art Museum — 14 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.
• Fort Worth Stockyards — 16 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.

More markers nearby

• Bankhead Highway in Aledo — 1.3 mi
• Annetta Cemetery — 4.4 mi
• Lawson Daniel Gratz — 5.4 mi
• Parsons Station — 7.1 mi