Forney

In 1847, Sallie Daugherty came from Arkansas with her four sons and purchased 1,000 acres of land four miles southeast of present-day Forney, naming the area Union Hill. This area later became known as Lone Elm. In 1848, Kaufman County was carved out of the huge Nacogdoches County.

In the early 1850s, more settlers began to arrive in this area. By 1860, many hardy settlers entered booming Texas, mainly from the South. Hearing of the good land of the rolling prairies of this North Central Texas area, many stopped here and began their lives as farmers and ranchers. The small village that began to spring up near the rim of the bluff that overlooked the Bois D'Arc Fork of the Trinity River was to be named Brooklyn.

By 1873, Brooklyn was a growing town, with saloons, merchandise store, lodge, and was being supported by a few hundred people. It was the year that the Texas and Pacific Railroad come through Brooklyn, which was to change the face of our town forever.

As the town progressed, through the influence the Railroad provided, it was now ready for a Post Office to satisfy the residents' needs. The name of Brooklyn was submitted to the Post Office Department in Washington, D.C., however, another town by the same name with a Post Office was already established in Fayette County, so another name had to be selected for our town if it wished postal service.

Changing of a town name was unusual, even in 1873. John Wein Forney, born in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, in 1817, was a director of the Texas and Pacific Railroad Company and was believed to have been instrumental in the new railroad route through the village of Brooklyn.

In gratitude to Mr. Forney, several influential residents suggested Forney's name be submitted as a Post Office, and it was accepted. Thus the name of the town of Forney was established permanently.

The prairies that surrounded the town were covered with a native grass that was found to produce a sweet, nutritious hay when cut and baled. For the next 50 years "Forney Prairie Hay"' as it was known, was one of the leading export products of Forney.

When the peak of the hay industry had been reached, cotton took its place. Money and wealth came to many large landowners from hay and then cotton. By 1910, Forney boasted of eight cotton gins, the most for its size of any town in Texas. Fifteen to twenty thousand bales of cotton were ginned each fall and shipped to cotton markets across the United States.

The new Dixie Highway (U.S. 80) opened through Forney in the late 1920s, resulting in better automobile travel in this area. The Texas Interurban Railway Company began operations in 1923 on its Dallas-Forney-Terrell rail line. Running through Forney on Church Street, this streetcar-type electric rail line served for 10 years as an advanced commuter type service, a source unequaled before or since.

During the 1940-1950 period, the town came virtually to a standstill, due primarily to the Second World War. Very few, if any, new businesses were opened in the city. Many larger companies chose Garland and Mesquite during the post-war period, after considering Forney as a prospective home. Little residential building was recorded and the town slumbered as many of its neighbors grew like wildfire.

The area north of the new Interstate Highway 20 was exclusively farmland in the 1960s. Today it composes a major residential section of Forney. During the late 1960s, a new elementary school was completed in South Forney and the city became a three-school town. It was during the 60s that the Forney High School jackrabbit football team won approximately 100 games in a ten-year period, one of the winningest records in Texas and a proud heritage of Forney athletes.

In the late 1960s, Glenn "Red" Whaley opened the first antique business in east Forney, the genesis of the huge antique business the city boasts today. Forney has now been recognized by the Texas Senate as the "Antique Capital of Texas".

Today these flavors all blend together with rural farmers and suburban-ites all calling Forney home.