Duncanville

Duncanville is west of the intersection of Interstate Highway 20 and U.S. Highway 67 in southwestern Dallas County. The land on which the city lies originally belonged to the Peters Colony. Settlement began when Crawford Trees arrived from Illinois in 1845 and purchased several thousand acres south of Camp Dallas. Trees donated land in 1855 for the Little Bethel Male and Female School, which also served as a church building until 1881, when citizens constructed the Union Hall House. In 1880 the Chicago, Texas and Mexican Central Railway reached the area and built Duncan Switch, named for a line foreman. Charles P. Nance, the community's first postmaster, renamed the settlement Duncanville in 1882. The Gulf, Colorado and Santa Fe acquired the railroad in 1883 and erected telegraph poles and lines.