The town arrived later, and it arrived for the railroad. In 1863 a settler named Alexander McRae Dechman founded the community first known as Dechman. When the Texas and Pacific reached the depot in 1876 the place became a rail town, and in 1877 the name the railroad used — taken from the great grassland the tracks ran across — became official. Grand Prairie incorporated in 1909 as a farming and ranching crossroads and stayed one for thirty years: a name taken from the land, and a founder's name taken off the map.
The fighter gets the posters, but the airplane the prairie built most was the trainer. The T-6 was so widely flown it answered to three names — Texan to the Army, SNJ to the Navy, Harvard to the British Commonwealth — and crews on every continent called it the Pilot Maker. It wasn't built to fight; it was built to teach, a fast, honest, unforgiving airplane, and nearly every American pilot of the war learned the feel of one before he learned anything else. Nearly thirteen thousand of them came off this one line.
Why People Visit Grand Prairie, Texas
People come for the central Metroplex location and the mix of prairie, lakes, and live racing — and stay curious about an aviation heritage most visitors never expect from a city between Dallas and Fort Worth. It is flat, friendly, and in the middle of everything, with a long horizon and a longer memory than its suburbs suggest.
