Flower Mound

Flower Mound became the setting for a federal experiment. The Handbook of Texas says that in 1968 it was one of thirteen places chosen under the New Communities Act, with developers Raymond Nasher and Edward Marcus planning a town of 60,000 to 70,000 people on 6,156 acres beside Grapevine Lake, mixing races and incomes. Original residents fought the tax increases it brought. Construction began in 1972, but federal red tape, recession and slow land sales sank the project, and by September 1976 the federal housing agency had foreclosed on the Texas experiment.

What the plaque says

Flower Mound Settlers of the Peters Colony named this smooth, dome-shaped hill for the abundant wild flowers that grow on it. Rising fifty feet above the surrounding prairie, Flower Mound, long has been a point of interest in the area. According to local legends, no structure was ever constructed on top of the mound, nor has any tree grown here. Before W. S. Peters began bringing settlers to the land issued him by the Republic of Texas Congress, Wichita Indians inhabited the area. During the 1840s, Peters colonists began moving to the prairie in search of good farmland. In 1844, John R. Wizwell was granted 640 acres of land that included the mound. His widow, Edy, later remarried and sold this land to George L. Beavers. Flower Mound remained in the Beavers family well into the twentieth century. Although the hill has remained in private ownership, it historically has been identified with the community that grew up around it. Flower Mound Presbyterian Church was the first to officially use the name in 1854. Once a sprawling agricultural community, Flower Mound has begun to expand with the urban growth of nearby Dallas and Fort Worth, leaving this formation as a historic reminder of its pioneer days. (1984)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Denton County Courthouse-on-the-Square — 14 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.
• Dallas Museum of Art — 22 mi
  A city art museum that began as the Dallas Art Association in 1903, grew up in Fair Park, and has stood in the Arts District since 1984 under a forty-foot barrel vault.
• The Sixth Floor Museum at Dealey Plaza — 22 mi
  A plow-company warehouse of 1903, identified by the Warren Commission as the building Oswald fired from, now a museum on its sixth and seventh floors above Dealey Plaza.
• Fort Worth Stockyards — 22 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

• Peters Colony — 3.2 mi
• Missouri Colony — 3.6 mi
• Grapevine Cemetery — 4.5 mi
• Chinn's Chapel Methodist Church — 4.8 mi