Dalworthington Gardens

The plaque counts eighty sites; the Handbook of Texas counts seventy-nine, laid out on 593 acres bought for $250,000, from three acres to thirty-two, with forty-three acres kept for a community house and park. It was not a relief program. Buyers put down 10 percent, proved they could repay, and typically paid under $25 a month for mortgage, management and utilities. Early residents formed a cooperative, Texas Industries, and made furniture, stepladders and butter churns. Texas had five such subsistence homestead projects, and this is the only one that survives as a community.

What the plaque says

Dalworthington Gardens THE CITY OF DALWORTHINGTON GARDENS BEGAN AS A RESULT OF PRESIDENT FRANKLIN D. ROOSEVELT'S DEPRESSION-ERA POLICIES. ROOSEVELT SUPPORTED THE "BACK-TO-THE-LAND" MOVEMENT, ENCOURAGING URBAN WORKERS TO LIVE ON AND CULTIVATE RURAL PROPERTY. ROOSEVELT SIGNED THE NATIONAL INDUSTRIAL RECOVERY ACT INTO LAW IN 1933; IT AUTHORIZED THE ESTABLISHMENT OF A SUBSISTENCE HOMESTEAD PROGRAM. WHILE VISITING THE ARLINGTON AREA, FIRST LADY ELEANOR ROOSEVELT SAW THIS AREA AS A POSSIBLE SITE FOR THE HOMESTEAD PROJECT. IN DECEMBER 1933, A CORPORATION WAS FORMED FOR A STATE CHARTER AND TITLED DALWORTHINGTON GARDENS, INC. (COMBINING THE NAMES OF NEARBY DALLAS, FORT WORTH, AND ARLINGTON). EARLY THE NEXT YEAR, THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT BOUGHT PROPERTY SOUTH OF ARKANSAS LANE NEAR ARLINGTON. BY JUNE, CIVIL WORKS ADMINISTRATION WORKERS ARRIVED TO CLEAR THE AREA FOR 80 DEVELOPMENT SITES. ONLY PEOPLE FROM THE DALLAS OR FORT WORTH AREAS WOULD QUALIFY TO LIVE IN DALWORTHINGTON GARDENS. BY MAY 1935, MOST OF THE CONSTRUCTION WAS COMPLETE. HOWEVER, APPLICANTS THAT MOVED INTO THE HOMES HAD TO DEAL WITH MANY ISSUES, INCLUDING LACK OF GAS, FAULTY WATER AND SEWAGE PIPING, AND UNFENCED PROPERTY. RESIDENTS, HOWEVER, WORKED TOGETHER TO BUILD A TIGHT-KNIT COMMUNITY. THEY SOON ESTABLISHED A COMMUNITY HOUSE THAT BECAME A CENTER OF ACTIVITY. IN 1949, RESIDENTS PETITIONED TO HAVE THE COLONY INCORPORATED INTO A TOWN. TODAY, THOUGH SURROUNDED BY ARLINGTON AND PANTEGO IN THE THRIVING DALLAS-FORT WORTH METROPLEX, DALWORTHINGTON GARDENS REMAINS THE ONLY SUBSISTENCE HOMESTEAD PROJECT EXISTING AS AN AUTONOMOUS COMMUNITY IN TEXAS. (2010)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Tarrant County Courthouse — 11 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.
• Cedar Ridge Preserve — 12 mi
  A 633-acre Audubon Dallas preserve at the western edge of Dallas County, with about nine miles of trails through prairie, woodland and escarpment hills.
• Kimbell Art Museum — 13 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 — 13 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

• Tate Cemetery — 1.6 mi
• Marrow Bone Spring — 2.5 mi
• General Edward H. Tarrant — 2.5 mi
• Middleton Tate Johnson — 2.5 mi