Welcome to Bird's Fort!
(near Arlington, Texas)


 

Dallas and Tarrant County's oldest pioneer settlement -- established in 1841

Site where Sam Houston signed the first peace treaty of the Republic of Texas with twelve native American tribes
NOTE: This photo of restored Fort Parker (Fort Parker State Park, Mexia, TX) is used here because there is no known picture of Bird's Fort -- the wooden structure disappeared 150 years ago. This blockhouse and surrounding pickets are typical of frontier outposts built in the 1830s and 1840s, and close to early descriptins of Bird's Fort.

 



RATED FIVE STARS
by Amazon.com

 

Want to read an exiciting work of historical fiction - a docudrama - all about the settlement of Bird's Fort and the entire Dallas area (1838-1845)?

This site brought to you courtesy of Tom Marlin, author of

THREE FORKS, A NOVEL OF TEXAS
ISBN: 0759643679

CLICK HERE to visit Tom's author site and order the novel online

Or order from Amazon.com, BarnesAndNoble.com or order from your local Bookstore.

"Despite allegations to the contrary, the demise of the fort's original location has been greatly exaggerated ."

. . .Tom Marlin

Few people in the Arlington / Dallas-Fort Worth area know the location of Bird's Fort, the area's first pioneer settlement. Even fewer have ever been there.

The aerial photo on the left (below) was taken in 1994 by the U.S. Department of Transportation. The map on the right was drawn by Surveyor J.J. Goodfellow in 1902, who had seen remnants of the fort in the 1860s (source: Tarrant County Historical Commission). The crescent-shaped lake is intact today, although the water level is down due to drought and other possible man-made causes. The original site of the fort is marked by a large, stone historical marker -- placed there by the State in 1936.

The site of Bird's Fort is on private property, owned by the same family for many years. The owners have made an effort to preserve the ecology and beauty of this naturally occurring lake -- one of the few in Texas -- despite heavy construction in the surrounding area. Note the amazing similarity between the two pictures, considering Goodfellow had no aerial photographs for reference when he drew his map. The existence and preservation of the site today is remarkable, considering the incredible amount of development done in the area over the past half-century.


Would you like to travel back to 1853 and read about Bird's Fort in one of Texas's earliest newspapers? Then CLICK HERE

Send email to Tom Marlin