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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.

In 1876, local resident James M. Benbrook petitioned the Texas and Pacific Railroad to place a station along Mary's Creek near Miranda where
the railroad ran west out of Fort Worth. The line was completed to Benbrook in May 1880 and the railroad named the stop Benbrook Station
after James M. Benbrook. In May 1893, James M. Benbrook sold the Texas and Pacific Railroad a half-acre of land for use as a depot for
$25.00. During the 1890s, two trains stopped each day in Benbrook. Just like the stage line, the railroad was an easy target for robbers; the
line was particularly vulnerable at the wooden trestle bridge over Mary's Creek. In 1886, Congressman S. W. T. Lanham (who was later elected
as governor) was a victim of a robbery near Benbrook while traveling from Weatherford to Fort Worth to give a speech on prohibition. The
train was robbed by five men in June 1887 and again in September 1887; both robberies were attributed to the Rueben and James Burrows
gang who later bragged about the train robberies they pulled in "Bend Brooke (sic)." A robbery in 1896 in broad daylight, allegedly by
Eugene "Captain Dick" Bunch, was one of the last such robberies in Texas.

FIRST FAMILIES

The Peter Boaz family arrived in Birdville from Kentucky in 1873 and the family subsequently moved to Benbrook in 1878. Peter and Martha
had nine children including: Will N., Hiram Abiff, Ex, and Z. Hiram Boaz, converted at one of the Old Rawhide Camp meetings, became one
of the early leaders of the Methodist church in Benbrook. Hiram Boaz became a Methodist Bishop in 1922 and president of both Polytechnic

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