The Interurban in Burleson

The Interurban brought more than passengers to Burleson. The Handbook of Texas says the town received its first electricity in 1913, powered by wires laid for the line, and gas service followed in 1921. Burleson, which began around a Katy depot in 1881, had 368 people in 1904 and 241 in the 1920s. State Highway 21 from Fort Worth to Alvarado came through in 1924. The Handbook's Joshua entry says service stopped in 1932 as automobiles took over, a year after the plaque's end date.

What the plaque says

The Interurban in Burleson At the turn of the 20th century, the Northern Texas Traction Co. found success with an interurban railway that operated between Fort Worth and Dallas. In 1911, a group began planning a new interurban that would run from Fort Worth to Cleburne by way of Everman, Burleson and Joshua. By that time, Burleson had approximately 700 residents and an active business district, and the city incorporated in 1912. The Fort Worth Southern Traction Co. came to town that year seeking employees and arranged with businessman and community leader Albert H. Loyless to be their local representative. He moved his Loyless-Robbins Pharmacy from a two-story wooden building across the street to a new brick building at this site. The traction company constructed an electrical plant and freight dock behind the building, and the pharmacy, complete with soda fountain and interurban ticket counter, occupied the front of the orange-brick structure. The first public run of the electrical train line came through Burleson on September 1, 1912. From that date until 1931, the train carried people in and out of town, brought goods to them from other cities, and helped make the pharmacy a community center. In 1935, a few years after the interurban ceased its service and motor coaches and automobiles took its place, Loyless, accepting the position of Burleson postmaster, moved his business next door to the post office. Robert Deering bought the former pharmacy building and from it published his newspaper, the Burleson News (later Burleson Dispatcher). The city later purchased the building for use as a visitors center. (2006)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• National Cowgirl Museum and Hall of Fame — 14 mi
  A hall of fame begun in Hereford in 1975 to honor rodeo women, widened in 1977 to Western heritage, and housed in Fort Worth's Cultural District since 2002.
• Kimbell Art Museum — 14 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.
• Tarrant County Courthouse — 15 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 — 17 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

• Site of Red Oak Academy — 1.1 mi
• Crowley Cemetery — 3.3 mi
• Barron Field — 5.9 mi
• Methodism in Joshua — 6.3 mi