Richardson

Richardson, a residential and electronic manufacturing suburb of Dallas, is on U.S. Highway 75 and the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe, the Southern Pacific, and the St. Louis and Southwestern railroads, ten miles north of downtown Dallas in northern Dallas and southern Collin counties. The twenty-eight-square-mile area of Richardson has an uneven boundary surrounded by other communities, including Dallas to the northwest and south, Garland to the east and south, Plano to the north, and Murphy and Sachse to the east. The 159-acre city of Buckingham is entirely within the city limits of Richardson. Spring and Duck creeks and Cottonwood Branch run through the community. The area of Richardson was settled by the Peters colony in the 1840s and 1850s. The area of waving grass and numerous springs was popular with early settlers, who formed the community of Breckinridge in the 1840s and 1850s. Breckinridge flourished until 1873, when the Houston and Texas Central Railroad bypassed it. Richardson was founded on the Houston and Texas Central Railway tracks. After it was built, the residents of Breckinridge moved to Richardson. William J. Wheeler, a local ginner, and Bernard Reilly donated 101 acres of land for the townsite and right-of-way for the railroad on June 23, 1873. Wheeler refused to have the community named after him, so it was called Richardson when it received a post office in 1874. There are several suggestions for the origin of the name. One is A. S. Richardson, a secretary on the H&TC. Most likely the town was named for E. H. Richardson, a contractor who built the Houston and Texas from Dallas to Denton. By 1881 Richardson was a thriving community with several stores, including general stores, groceries, and drugstores, four doctors, several cotton gins, and churches. In 1886 a train accident in the community killed one man, and when the sugar car overturned, spilling sugar on the tracks, residents took it home in buckets.

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.