Dove Community

The 1843 Bird's Fort Treaty between the Republic of Texas and several Native American tribes opened this area for new immigrants. In the ensuing years, a number of families from Platt County, Missouri and other parts of the United States migrated to this area and established the Cross Timbers community (now Grapevine). In February 1846, residents living on the northern edge of the community organized the Lonesome Dove Baptist Church in the fall of that year. In 1847, members built a long log structure approximately four miles northwest of Grapevine in the Eastern Cross Timbers. The Lonesome Dove School also began in 1846, and the Rev. John Allen Freeman served as schoolteacher as well as church pastor for ten years. In 1849, the state legislature created Tarrant County, with Birdville as county seat, and the U.S. Army established Fort Worth as a frontier fort. The small village of Dove developed by the 1870s. A general store and post office operated at the intersection of Dove and Lonesome Dove roads, and the community became a prosperous farming center for cotton, melon and dairy production. Included as part of the community were Lonesome Dove Cemetery just north of the church site, the Dove Branch swimming hole, used for recreation as well as baptisms, and Dove School, which consolidated with other area schools to form the Carroll Common School District in 1919. The federal government completed Lake Grapevine in 1952, requiring a number of families to relocate from the northern portion of the Dove Community. In 1979, the City of Southlake annexed Dove, but evidence of the early area community remains. (2006)