Our Carrollton logo carries the Texas longhorn and the Lone Star above 'Texas Republic — Est. 1845,' the shared retro emblem of our Texas towns; the longhorn stands for the cattle-and-cotton country the town was built to ship, the star for Texas itself, and 1845 marks the year Texas joined the Union as a state. Rendered distressed in black-and-white, like a brand on a crate or a stock pen, it ties Carrollton to every other Texas town we make. What makes this one Carrollton is the town behind the brand — the two Carrolltons, the rail crossing, and the silos on the Square.
What turned a farm district into a town was the railroad — three of them, really. The Dallas & Wichita line reached Carrollton and a post office opened in 1878; Jay Gould bought the unfinished road and pushed it to Denton in 1880, and it became the Missouri, Kansas & Texas — the 'Katy.' Then, in 1888, the Cotton Belt line crossed the Katy right at Carrollton, and that crossing made the place. A town that shipped its neighbors' cotton, cottonseed, grain, and livestock grew up in the angle of the rails, soon outpacing the older mill settlement of Trinity Mills to the north. The Historic Downtown Square took shape along Belt Line Road, and it is still the heart of the old town.
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.
