The William Overton family operated the first gristmill in Dallas county and an early store. According to these pages from the store’s 1856 ledger, Samuel Pryor, the first mayor of Dallas, purchased flour, lard and cornmeal, standard grocery items. The entrepreneurial Alex Cockrell bought building materials. Such family businesses grew larger after the war.
EARLY YEARS / PREHISTORY TO 1873
Boosters and Entrepreneurs
“Boosterism” was the practice of citizens promoting their town to to businesses and people looking for a new place to live, so that it could become a successful city. John Neely Bryan did that in the 1840s, when he offered free lots in Dallas to newly married couples so that they would settle there. The Peters Colony boosted the region when it advertised for settlers. Boosters wanted people to invest in new businesses, develop better agriculture, and spread the word that the Dallas area was booming. One early pioneer who responded to these efforts was disappointed. “We had heard a great deal about…the town of Dallas,” he recalled. But “where was it? Two small log cabins, the logs just as nature found them…This was the town of Dallas.” Despite his initial disapproval, John B. Billingsley went on to a bright future along with his new town.
Entrepreneurs heeded the call to build general stores, hotels, saloons, gristmills and lumber mills. By the 1850s, Dallas had an insurance agency, a boot and shoe shop, a milliner to supply ladies with stylish hats, and two brickyards.
