Jopling-Melear Log Cabin

Building a log cabin on the prairie was harder than it looks. The Arlington Historical Society, which keeps this cabin, notes that prairie oaks run small, so settlers hauled logs by horse, mule or ox from the Eastern Cross Timbers along Arlington's western side. They trimmed, notched and stacked the logs, chinked the gaps with mud and grass, and often left a dirt floor and a rock fireplace. Inside, the room is furnished as it might have been in the Joplings' day, with a rope bed frame, and locals joke that George Washington slept here, meaning George Washington Jopling.

What the plaque says

Jopling-Melear Log Cabin George Washington Jopling (1833-1903) erected this log cabin in 1863 in the Johnson Station Community for his wife Catherine (Thomas) (1837-1882) and their large family. A farmer, cattleman, and cotton gin owner, Jopling also served as a community leader, helping organizing the Johnson Station Masonic Lodge. After Catherine died he remarried and deeded the cabin, which had been enlarged, to his daughter Jane Catherine (1854-1940) and her husband Z.T. Melear 1850-1931). Melear, a farmer and blacksmith, owned a livery stable and cotton gin. In 1970 the cabin was moved to this site. (1980)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Cedar Ridge Preserve — 11 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.
• Tarrant County Courthouse — 13 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.
• Fort Worth Stockyards — 14 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.
• Kimbell Art Museum — 15 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

• P.A. Watson Log House — steps away
• North Side School — steps away
• First United Methodist Church of Arlington — steps away
• First Baptist Church of Arlington — 0.3 mi