Lancaster

Lancaster is at the junction of State Highway 342 and Pleasant Run Road, fourteen miles south of Dallas in southern Dallas County. Ten Mile Creek and its tributaries run throughout the area. Abram Bledsoe bought half of the Roderick Rawlins survey in 1847 and five years later laid out a city plan near the community of Pleasant Run. He named his township Lancaster, after the name of his birthplace, Lancaster, Kentucky. Bledsoe brought with him his daughter, Virginia, a schoolteacher, who married Roderick A. Rawlins, the son of Roderick Rawlins, a settler in the area since 1845. The White family of Tennessee moved to Lancaster in late 1851, and R. P. Henry, a native of France, moved his family to Lancaster in the early 1860s. A carding machine was operated in the community in 1850. Dr. H. J. Moffett established his drugstore and practice there in 1851. In 1860 a post office was established in Lancaster.

Adapted from the official Handbook of Texas, a state encyclopedia developed by the Texas State Historical Association (TSHA). It is an authoritative source of trusted historical records.