122 Business View - February 2016
Cedar Hill, Texas
Partnership is part of its language
The 36 square-mile city of Cedar Hill, Texas is located
about 16 miles southwest of downtown Dallas. Accord-
ing to Rob Franke, its long-time council member and
mayor, this town of rolling hills, underlined by chalk and
limestone is “one of the prettiest areas of Dallas Coun-
ty.” At one time, Cedar Hill, which got its first post office
in 1852, lay along a branch of the old Chisholm Trail
which connected it to the main part of the trail near Ft.
Worth. And if not for a tornado that swept through it in
1856, destroying most of its buildings, the town might
still be the county seat of Dallas County, today.
By 1890, Cedar Hill had a population of 500; by 1915,
it had three churches, two banks, and a number of
other businesses. In the 1980s, the population began
to grow dramatically, especially after Joe Pool Lake,
built by the Army Corps of Engineers, opened nearby
in 1989, and Cedar Hill State Park, on the lake’s east-
ern shore, opened two years later. The town’s popula-
tion grew to 32,000 by 2000. Currently, it stands just
under 50,000. “We’re one of the oldest communities
in Dallas County. We grew up as an agricultural area
like most places did and developed into a nice place
to live,” says Franke.
While it’s true that Cedar Hill’s proximity to both Dal-
INFRASTRUCTURE
