Missouri Colony

The colonists were mostly kin, and they came together. A descendant's book, Trek to Texas, as quoted by Community Impact, says about two dozen related families left Platte County, Missouri, in 1844 with wagons, Bibles, guns and dogs, and met swollen streams, illness and harassment along the way, so that many turned back. Two settlers who reached Texas went back the next year to persuade more relatives, and about 175 people had claimed land by 1845. Their claims came through the Peters Colony, which gave married settlers 640 acres and single men over seventeen 320.

What the plaque says

Missouri Colony In 1844 related families from Platte County, Missouri, settled in this area. James Gibson, one of the earliest settlers in Tarrant County, owned this site. In 1845 more relatives and friends arrived. They became known as the "Missouri Colony". The pioneers raised cattle and grain. John. A Freeman taught school and preached to the settlers at Lonesome Dove. Some original colonists moved to pioneer other frontier regions. Others remained to help build the northeastern section of Tarrant County, the first permanently settled area in the county. (1979)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Denton County Courthouse-on-the-Square — 18 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 — 18 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 — 18 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.
• Dallas Heritage Village at Old City Park — 20 mi
  Dallas's first city park, laid out around Browder's Spring in 1876, now a museum of historic buildings moved here from across North Texas, among them Millermore, a cotton planter's mansion.

More markers nearby

• Grapevine Springs Park — 2.2 mi
• Grapevine Cemetery — 2.7 mi
• First Baptist Church of Grapevine — 3.3 mi
• Bethel Cemetery — 3.4 mi