| Marker Text |
By 1856, Edmund D. and Freelove Sowers, who came to Texas from Illinois, owned land in this vicinity. Along with their neighbors, including Jacob and Henry Caster, and William and Lucinda Haley, they farmed, hunted game and cut timber. Ed Sowers also served as a blacksmith. Sowers opened a general store on his property in the late 1870s, and a small business district developed around it. As additional families came to the area, Sowers donated land that was added to an adjacent burial plot to form the community cemetery. In 1881, he applied for a mail route and opened a post office in his general store. During that same time, Sowers built a schoolhouse for local children. In the 1880s, several physicians came to the Sowers community, including William Wilson, Alfred Gregory and Daniel Webster Gilbert, who had a local drugstore. Dr. John Haley, a Sowers native who would later serve as mayor of Irving, began his medical practice here in 1897. With medical services and the post office, the Sowers community served as a center for area farming communities. Ed and Freelove Sowers held annual Fourth of July picnics and other festivals, inviting families from the region to camp, dance, compete in baseball games and enjoy barbecue dinners. Despite the growth of nearby Irving, the Sowers community, with strong foundations in the dairy and poultry businesses, survived until the 1950s. The Sowers School consolidated with Irving schools in 1955, and Irving annexed the community itself in 1954 and 1956. Today, the businesses and homes are gone. Only the cemetery remains as a link to the Sowers community. (2003) |
