Prosper

Prosper's houses stand on the hill because townspeople defied a fence. According to local histories from 1946 and 1972, a townsite company with advance word of the Frisco route sold lots on the flat. Citizens preferred the high ground east of town, a tract Dr. Bryant of McKinney had kept back, and bought there instead. The company strung a four-strand barbed-wire fence between the hill and the business district. Someone cut it to pieces the first night, and a second fence met the same fate. The company gave up, and homes stayed on the high ground.

What the plaque says

Prosper Prosper grew from two early settlements, Rock Hill and Richland. When the St. Louis, San Francisco and Texas Railroad bypassed the two communities, the new town of Prosper, founded in 1902, became the center of commercial activity. The town grew steadily in its early years, primarily as a shipping center for surrounding farms. Tied to cotton and grain economies, the town ebbed and flowed with prices. In recent years, Prosper has experienced growth due to its proximity to the Dallas Metroplex, but it retains much of its historic fabric, from homes and commercial structures to three church congregations that moved to the town at its founding. (2003)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Heard Natural Science Museum & Wildlife Sanctuary — 12 mi
  A 289-acre sanctuary in McKinney that Bessie Heard founded at the age of 80, with five habitats, a 50-acre wetland and 6.5 miles of trails.
• Denton County Courthouse-on-the-Square — 19 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.
• Rockwall County Historical Foundation & Museum — 29 mi
  A small museum in Harry Myers Park that keeps the evidence on Rockwall's rock wall, sandstone dikes that geologists call natural and folk tales call built.

More markers nearby

• First Presbyterian Church of Prosper — steps away
• Lee Lodge No. 435, A.F. & A.M. — 0.2 mi
• Prosper United Methodist Church — 0.2 mi
• Site of Rock Hill — 2.2 mi