Then Arlington discovered it had water worth selling. A downtown artesian well drilled in 1892 brought up mineral water, and for nearly sixty years the town marketed itself as a health resort, with a bathhouse and pavilion and visitors who came to "take the waters." The interurban electric railway that linked Dallas and Fort Worth ran right through town, carrying day-trippers to the wells. The well stayed at the center of downtown civic life until it was capped in 1951; a memorial plaza marks the spot today. The health-resort decades gave Arlington its first taste of being a destination rather than a way station.
The blackland prairie here was Caddo country long before the town. In 1841, in the Republic of Texas years, frontiersmen built Bird's Fort near present-day Arlington, and the Bird's Fort Treaty was signed in the area in 1843 — a frontier accord between the young republic and Native nations on land that had been inhabited for centuries. Settlement followed slowly, with scattered farms and the small community of Johnson Station out on the Cross Timbers.
Why People Visit Arlington
Arlington rewards travelers who want big-event energy with Texas convenience — the stadiums and theme parks of the Entertainment District, set between Dallas and Fort Worth and easy to reach from either. People come for the games, the coasters, and the concerts, and stay for the river-and-lake parks and the offbeat heritage of a prairie town that talked itself into becoming the American Dream City.
