About Burleson, Texas

Burleson is a city in Johnson and Tarrant counties in the U.S. state of Texas. It is a suburb of Fort Worth. As of the 2010 census it had a population of 36,690, and in 2019 it had an estimated population of 48,225.

The Missouri–Kansas–Texas Railroad, known as “the Katy”, extended its service from Denison to Waco. In 1880 the segment from Fort Worth to Alvarado was being laid out, and a midway depot was needed. Grenville M. Dodge, representing the railroad, purchased land for the depot and a town surrounding it from Rev. Henry C. Renfro at the site of what is now called “Old Town” Burleson. As part of the agreement, Renfro named the town “Burleson”, in honor of his teacher Rufus Columbus Burleson, the president of Baylor University. The first lot was sold on October 10, 1880, the date now considered the city’s “founding day”.

The Burleson Post Office opened in 1882, inside a retail establishment, as was common for small towns at the time. On February 20, 1895, a fire burned down most of the business district, along with several houses. One of the Katy workers, J. C. Jones, had stayed in Burleson and opened a water works for the town, drilling a deep well that provided dozens of hydrants for the residents, but they were not sufficient to extinguish the fire. By the end of the 1800s, Burleson was a bustling rural town, with farms all around, schools, a grocery store, cotton gins and grist mills, a general store, a druggist, a bank, and a jeweler. In 1899, a group of nine women formed a society for cultural advancement and called it the Eumathian Club. The women acquired books, loaned them, and held readings, discussions, and music recitals.[