Eagle Ford

Eagle Ford was on the Missouri, Kansas and Texas Railroad and Loop 12 six miles west of downtown Dallas in western Dallas County. It was on the original land grants of H. Burnham and the Buffalo Bayou, Brazos and Colorado Railway. The area was first settled by the family of Enoch Horton, who moved there from Missouri in 1844 and established a home at a shallow part of the West Fork of the Trinity River, which became a fording spot for travelers. When Horton found an eagle's nest in the area, he named the crossing Eagle Ford. Several pioneer families from La Réunion settled in Eagle Ford. One source claims that another landowner was French marshall Achille François Bazaine, who was sent to Mexico by Napoleon III to help establish Austrian archduke Ferdinand Maximilian Joseph as emperor of Mexico in the 1860s. While in Mexico Bazaine reportedly acquired approximately 200 acres of land in the Eagle Ford area.

Eagle Ford had a post office from 1858 until 1866. The community did not begin to develop until the depression of 1873 halted construction of the Texas and Pacific Railway, which made Eagle Ford its western terminus until 1876. With the construction of cattle-holding facilities, the community soon became a cattle-shipping point to rival Dallas and Fort Worth as the major city of North Texas. Eagle Ford grew from a small community centered around a general store to a community with a population of several thousand people and fifty new businesses and homes, including a two-story hotel and a railway station. One year later W. W. Basaye began publishing the Weekly Eaglet, and the community secured another post office that operated until 1918.