Page 323 - Honorable Mayor and Members of the City Council

BENBROOK HISTORICAL BACKGROUND

and Wilburn families. Newspaper accounts indicate twenty-seven students were enrolled in 1877 and forty-eight
students attended in 1879. The building reportedly burned down in 1879. The school was re-established near the
corner of the present Mercedes Street and Winscott Road, and was called the Miranda (or Marinda) School (or Marinda
Academy) named after one of the Wilburn children, Mrs. Marinda Snyder, who donated five acres of land to the
Marinda Seminary School. The site reportedly included a cemetery which probably was the beginning of the present
Benbrook Cemetery, officially established in 1885. The building continued to serve as the Methodist church. The
community was known by the name of the school during its early years. A post office was established at Benbrook in
1880.

Just three years later, the Marinda School and church was relocated to the intersection of Winscott Road and Old
Benbrook Road where the present day Weatherford (previously known as Computalog) building is located.
Construction was on land donated by Mrs. Marinda Snyder. The Benbrook Common School District No. 58 was
established in 1884. The school was renamed Benbrook School in 1885 and residents became the first district in Tarrant
County to vote for a school tax. The school had sixty-four students by 1905.

TRANSPORTATION - TRIALS AND TRIBULATIONS

A branch of the "Old Chisholm Trail" passed through the area, crossing Mary's Creek at Rawhide Crossing in the area
of the present Z. Boaz Park, and served as a route to avoid the main trail route through downtown Fort Worth. A branch
trail, known as the Long Trail or Cleburne Cut-Off, extended from Raw Hide Crossing to Cleburne and shortened the
trip by thirteen miles. The Butterfield Stage Line followed the Old Chisholm Trail and was headquartered in Bowie,
Texas. An old water well used to water the horses was located on the Coder farm. From 1876 to 1881 the Fort Worth-
El Paso Mail Route Stage Line also ran along Mary's Creek on its way west. The stage was reportedly robbed several
times in the vicinity of Miranda. A gang known as the "Bold Banditti" (including Sam Bass) was responsible for many
of these crimes; the "Bold Banditti" gang often took refuge in "Hell's Half Acre" on what is now the site of the Fort Worth
Convention Center in downtown Fort Worth. Sam Bass reportedly robbed the Cleburne-Fort Worth stage at Mary's
Creek in November 1877 and the Weatherford-Fort Worth stage on January 26, 1878. Fleming "Slim" Doggett robbed
the Granbury stage near Benbrook; he was later slain by Texas Rangers on the H. C. Stephens farm.

CITY OF BENBROOK 2018-19 ANNUAL BUDGET
322