Kit

Kit was on the site of the present intersection of State Highway 356 and Loop 12, seven miles west of downtown Dallas in western Dallas County. It was one of two early settlements near the site of present Irving. The other community, Gorbett (Gorbit or Corbitt), preceded Kit and had a post office from 1889 to 1894. John B. Gorbett was an early area resident. In anticipation of the construction of the Chicago, Rock Island and Gulf Railway, businessmen from Gorbett bought land on the proposed route and laid out a town plat in 1882. The community took the name Gorbett, but in 1894, after mail deliveries were mixed up with those to the other Gorbett, the name was changed to Kit. The Kit post office operated from 1894 until 1904. After it became apparent that the railroad would bypass Kit, several of the community's businessmen moved to the site of Irving, beginning in 1903. By the 1960s only a few houses remained in the area that was once Kit, and the community was considered a ghost town.