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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.

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
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