The most Carrollton thing on the skyline came with that shipping trade: the tall concrete grain-elevator silos that still ring the east side of the Square. Built to hold the grain the trains hauled in and out, the cylindrical complex outlasted the farms it served and became the town's accidental monument — a piece of industrial Texas standing over a square of vintage storefronts. In recent years the city has begun turning the silos into public art and a gateway for rail riders, so the structure that once measured the harvest now greets the commuter. Few suburbs keep a landmark so plainly honest about where their money first came from.
Modern Carrollton is also one of the most Korean cities in Texas. Along Old Denton Road and through the north Dallas suburbs, a large Korean-American community has built groceries, bakeries, and barbecue restaurants thick enough that the area is sometimes called a hidden Koreatown — and in 2010 the city gave that everyday connection official shape by becoming a sister city of Guri, South Korea, just east of Seoul. The Festival at the Switchyard, begun the same year, brings the whole town back to the Square and the old rail yard each fall. A frontier farm town named twice-over for a Maryland signer now throws a street festival in the shadow of its grain silos, in one of the most diverse suburbs in North Texas.
Why People Visit Carrollton
Visitors come to Carrollton for the old railroad town inside the modern suburb — the Square, the silos, and the Switchyard — and stay for the food, the parks, and the easy reach of the whole Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex. It is equal parts Texas heritage and present-day diversity, with vintage storefronts on one block and Korean bakeries on the next. Welcoming and well-connected, Carrollton rewards anyone curious about how a North Texas farm town became a three-county suburb without losing its center.
