The transformation took shape as Las Colinas. Beginning in 1973, the rancher and developer Ben Carpenter laid out a master-planned city-within-the-city on old family ranch land: office towers and hotels, a man-made lake, and the Mandalay Canal, a Venetian-style waterway where water taxis still slide past the shops. At its heart he set Williams Square, a stark plaza of pink granite — and into that plaza came the mustangs. In a single generation Irving had gone from cotton rows to one of the most recognizable corporate skylines in Texas. Carpenter wanted a touch of Europe on the Texas prairie, and the result still surprises first-time visitors who half expect oil derricks and instead find canal boats.
Our Irving logo carries Texas's longhorn and Lone Star, drawn in worn black and white above ‘Texas Republic — Est. 1845,’ the shared retro emblem of our Texas towns. The longhorn stands for ranching toughness and the star for the Lone Star State, and the 1845 date marks Texas statehood; the emblem is the through-line that links Irving to every other Texas town we make. What makes this one Irving is everything around it — the mustangs, the canals of Las Colinas, and a farm town that became a city of the world.
Why People Visit Irving
Irving offers art, water, and wild bronze horses in the middle of the Metroplex. Visitors come for the Mustangs, the canals, and the music, and stay for a central, easygoing base beside DFW with museums, sculpture plazas, and trails close at hand. It is both a cultural stop and a convenient home base, with year-round appeal in its parks, paths, and public spaces.
