Our Mesquite logo carries a Texas longhorn — the cattle breed that built the open range — and a Lone Star over "1845," the year of statehood and the shared emblem of every Merlin Classics Texas place. Printed black-and-white with the worn look of a branding iron or an old rodeo poster, the longhorn and star read as Texas in shorthand: cattle country, the Lone Star, the open prairie. What makes this one Mesquite is the place behind it — the 1873 rail depot, the Sam Bass robbery, and the Rodeo Capital the prairie town became.
It started as a water stop on the railroad. In 1873 the Texas & Pacific Railway dropped a depot on the Blackland Prairie east of Dallas and named it for Mesquite Creek. Five years later it was famous for fifteen minutes: the outlaw Sam Bass robbed the train here in 1878, and rode off with about $152. The little rail town grew into a cotton community, then a Dallas suburb, and along the way became the official Rodeo Capital of Texas. Railroad town, outlaw country, Saturday-night rodeo — this is the real Mesquite, and this page tells that story.
Why People Visit Mesquite Texas
- Catch the Mesquite Championship Rodeo at Resistol Arena on a summer Saturday night, the heart of the Rodeo Capital of Texas.
- Tour the Florence Ranch Homestead (1871), a restored pioneer farmstead and house museum.
- Walk the historic Mesquite town square and downtown, laid out around 1901.
- Relax at City Lake Park, with walking trails, fishing, and open lawns.
- Take the Mesquite Meander historic-cemetery walking tour each October.
