Rockwall

by Fowler, Sheri Stodghill

• ISBN13: 9780738558585
• ISBN10: 0738558583
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2009-04-27
• Publisher: Arcadia Pub

Summary

Rockwall owes its name to a unique underground formation discovered by three men digging a well. In 1852, Terry Utley Wade, Benjamin Boydstun, and William Clay Stevenson exposed what they termed a rock wall.” When a city name was needed in 1854, Rockwall was chosen. In the 1880s, the railroad’s arrival had a significant impact on the area and ushered in cotton as the main cash crop. Throughout the 1940s and 1950s, Rockwall was the epitome of small-town Texas: Yellow Jacket football on Friday nights, movies at the Ritz theatre on the square, lunch at the Mecca Café, milk shakes at Cunningham’s Drugstore, and watching television through the front window of Payne’s Appliances. Resting on the banks of Lake Ray Hubbard and sitting in Dallas’s shadow, Rockwall is faced with the unique challenge of balancing rapid growth while maintaining its historic charm.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments	p. 6
Introduction	p. 7
Early Settlement and the Arrival of the Railroad: 1840-1900	p. 9
Cotton is King in Rockwall's Agrarian-Based Economy: 1900-1945	p. 27
The Fabulous 1950s and the Decline of King Cotton: 1945-1965	p. 79
Construction of Lake Ray Hubbard and the Economic Shift to Suburbia: 1965 to Present	p. 107
About the Rockwall County Historical Foundation	p. 127
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