Arlington, Texas

• 1. Between Two Giants

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  Arlington, Texas, is the largest city in its state that is not a county seat. The 2020 census counted 394,266 people living there. That makes it the 50th most populous city in the United States and the seventh most populous in Texas. Inside Tarrant County, only Fort Worth is bigger. Across the whole metropolitan area, only Dallas and Fort Worth outrank it. Arlington sits in the gap between those two larger cities, and for much of its history it was overlooked. How did a railway stop surrounded by cotton fields grow into a city of nearly 400,000? Why did a roadside tea room earn a reputation for secret gambling? And why did a city this large go so long without a public bus system?

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• 2. Railway and Soil

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  On the 24th of May 1841, Texas General Edward H. Tarrant clashed with Native Americans of the Village Creek settlement. Afterward, a trading post was set up at Marrow Bone Spring, on ground that now lies inside the city. European settlers had been in the area since at least the 1840s, and the rich soil drew farmers. By the late nineteenth century, several businesses tied to agriculture were well established.

  In 1876, the Texas and Pacific Railway gave Arlington its start. The town took its name from Arlington House, the Virginia home of General Robert E. Lee, in Arlington County. It grew as a center for cotton ginning and farming, and it was incorporated on the 21st of April 1884. By 1910 the town could offer water, electricity, natural gas and telephone service, along with its own public school system.

  From 1892 until 1951, a mineral well drilled exactly in the middle of downtown was a main reason for visitors to come. The well has since been paved over, and the spot is now a public memorial plaza. Even so, the town stayed small. In 1925, its population was estimated at only 3,031, far below the numbers in Dallas and Fort Worth.

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• 3. Vegas Before Vegas

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  In the early 1920s, a tea room called Top O' Hill Terrace opened beside the Bankhead Highway. It served dinner and tea to travelers passing between Dallas and Fort Worth. Ownership changed in the late 1920s, and soon afterward the property was quietly converted into casinos and a speakeasy. Historians have called it Vegas before Vegas. Builders added escape tunnels and secret rooms so that gambling could be hidden during police raids. The restaurant kept operating as a legitimate business, which served as a front. The nearby Triangle Inn also ran as an illegal speakeasy and gambling house.

  In 1929, W.T. Waggoner built a horse-racing track called Arlington Downs close to the speakeasy. Gambling was still illegal, yet people placed bets anyway. Waggoner and his sons campaigned to make parimutuel betting legal, and in 1933 the state issued its first legal gambling permit to Arlington Downs. The track earned a daily average of $113,000 before inflation, with about 6,700 people attending each day. At the end of the 1937 season, the state legislature repealed its parimutuel gambling laws, and the Downs were sold to commercial developers.

  Top O' Hill Terrace evaded the police until 1947, when the famous Texas Ranger M. T. "Lone Wolf" Gonzaullas caught the gambling operation in full swing and shut it down. In 1956, the Bible Baptist Seminary bought the property and converted it into what is now Arlington Baptist University. The underground tunnels and original structures still stand. Arlington Downs fared worse. Developers destroyed it completely in 1958, and only a concrete water trough remains, beside a Texas historical marker placed in 2016. Arlington Baptist University traces its own founding to J. Frank Norris, a controversial Independent Baptist minister.

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• 4. Boomburb Years

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  Before World War II, Arlington's population had grown to just over 4,000. Then the war pulled families from all over Texas toward jobs. The city sat between Dallas and Fort Worth, which were the state's biggest aerospace engineering hubs at the time. Large-scale industrialization began in 1954, when a General Motors assembly plant arrived. Automotive and aerospace work gave Arlington one of the highest population growth rates in the nation between 1950 and 1990.

  Census figures date the boom. Arlington counted 7,692 people in 1950, then 90,229 in 1970 and 261,721 in 1990. By 2010 the count had reached 365,438. Arlington became one of the boomburbs, the extremely fast-growing suburbs of the post-war era. Tom Vandergriff served as mayor from 1951 to 1977, through the heart of that expansion. In 1961, Six Flags Over Texas opened in the city, the original park in the Six Flags chain.

  According to the city's 2024 financial report, the five largest employers account for 15.5 percent of all local jobs. General Motors leads with 8,919 employees. The Arlington Independent School District follows with 8,646, and the University of Texas at Arlington has 8,636. Texas Health Resources employs 4,062 people, and Six Flags Over Texas employs 3,900. Six Flags later added a waterpark, Hurricane Harbor, after buying the neighboring Wet 'n Wild in the mid-1990s.

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• 5. Stadium City

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  In 1972, the Washington Senators baseball team moved to Arlington and began play as the Texas Rangers. Their first home was Arlington Stadium. In 1994 the team opened The Ballpark in Arlington, renamed Choctaw Stadium in 2021. The Rangers reached the World Series in 2010 and 2011. In October 2023 they beat the Houston Astros in the American League Championship Series, then won the World Series against the Arizona Diamondbacks.

  In 2016, residents voted to build a new ballpark. Construction of the $1.1 billion Globe Life Field began in 2017, across the street from Choctaw Stadium. The pandemic postponed the 2020 season and delayed its debut. In 2020, Arlington became the first city since 1944 to hold every World Series game in a single venue, and that venue was Globe Life Field.

  The Dallas Cowboys left Texas Stadium in Irving in 2009 for the $1.3 billion AT&T Stadium. It soon attracted the 2010 NBA All-Star Game, Super Bowl XLV in 2011, and the 2014 NCAA Division I Men's Basketball Final Four. In January 2015 it also hosted the first College Football Championship Game. The Cowboys rent the stadium from the city for $167,500 per month over thirty years, far less than market value. In exchange, they control the calendar and collect the revenue, including naming rights, billboards, concessions and most nearby parking.

  The Dallas Wings became the first WNBA franchise in North Texas in 2015. They had been the Tulsa Shock in Oklahoma and rebranded after relocating. The UT Arlington Mavericks field teams in 15 varsity sports, and their name was chosen in 1971. That was nine years before the NBA's Dallas Mavericks picked theirs. Swimmer Doug Russell of UTA won two gold medals at the 1968 Mexico City Olympics. Sprinter Jeremy Wariner, a Lamar High School graduate, won two golds at the 2004 Athens Olympics. Myles Garrett, who graduated from Martin High School in 2014, went first overall in the 2017 NFL draft.

  In 2026, AT&T Stadium will host the most matches of the FIFA World Cup. That same year, IndyCar will contest the first Grand Prix of Arlington around AT&T Stadium and Globe Life Field.

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• 6. Getting Around

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  On the 2nd of July 1902, the first Dallas/Fort Worth Interurban electric trolley reached Arlington. The popular service ran along what is now Abram Street until Christmas Eve 1934. Texas and Pacific trains such as the Texas Eagle and the Louisiana Eagle also stopped in town, on runs between Fort Worth and Dallas. Today the Union Pacific Railroad owns that old route, offers no passenger stops, and mainly serves the local General Motors plant.

  Between 1980 and 2013, Arlington voters rejected three separate ballot proposals to bring in public transportation. For many years the city was the largest in the United States without any public transit system. On the 19th of August 2013, a two-year pilot called the Metro Arlington Xpress began weekday bus service. It ran from College Park Center to the Trinity Railway Express CentrePort Station near DFW Airport. In its first year it logged 64,600 one-way rides at a cost of $1.4 million. City leaders extended it through annual contracts, and it was officially shut down on the 29th of December 2017, a few weeks after Via arrived.

  In January 2017, Texas received a federal designation as an Automated Vehicle Proving Ground, and Arlington was part of it. In August 2017, the city launched Milo, an autonomous electric shuttle. It was the first such service in the United States offered to the general public on a continuous basis by a municipal government. Milo carries riders between remote parking areas and the stadiums during major events. Via Arlington began in December 2017 with six-passenger vans that riders can request on demand. Starting on the 19th of January 2021, the service expanded citywide. Arlington RAPID, run with Via and May Mobility, now offers autonomous rides downtown and on the UT Arlington campus.

  Only 3.7 percent of Arlington households lacked a car in 2016, against a national average of 8.7 percent. Arlington's roads carry memorial names that are rarely used. Interstate 20 honors Ronald Reagan, and Interstate 30 honors Tom Landry. State Highway 360 is named for Angus G. Wynne, the founder of Six Flags Over Texas. The 360 Tollway is also called the Rosa Parks Memorial Parkway.

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• 7. Land and Weather

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  Arlington covers 99.7 square miles, of which 96.5 are land and 3.2 are water. The city lies about 12 miles east of downtown Fort Worth and 20 miles west of downtown Dallas. The Trinity River and its tributary Johnson Creek flow through it. Arlington borders Kennedale, Grand Prairie, Mansfield and Fort Worth. It completely surrounds two smaller communities, Dalworthington Gardens and Pantego.

  The climate is humid subtropical, with very hot, humid summers and mild winters that bring little to no snow. The highest recorded temperature was 113 degrees Fahrenheit in 1936, and the lowest was minus 10 in 1899. October is the month with the most average rainfall. Severe weather generally arrives in April and May, because the city lies in Tornado Alley.

  On the 3rd of April 2012, a severe thunderstorm during a tornado outbreak produced an EF2 tornado in eastern Kennedale. It moved northeast across U.S. Route 287 near Stagetrail Drive and kept heading north-northeast. Its path was up to 150 yards wide and about 4.6 miles long, with estimated winds of 135 miles per hour. It tore a large portion of the roof off the Green Oaks Nursing and Rehabilitation Center. Eighteen homes were destroyed and 291 others were damaged. Eight people were injured, and one injury was serious.

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• 8. Community and Memory

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  The 2020 census put Arlington's median age at 34.3 years. About 40.5 percent of residents were White, 22.9 percent were Black or African American, and 30.7 percent were Hispanic or Latino. Between 2014 and 2018, roughly 20.8 percent of residents were foreign-born. The University of Texas at Arlington enrolls over 40,000 students, and its academic core holds some of the oldest buildings in the Metroplex, including Preston Hall and Ransom Hall. City residents are spread across five independent school districts, and district lines do not always follow city limits.

  Levitt Pavilion Arlington opened in 2009 and offers 50 free concerts a year in downtown. Pentatonix and the Polyphonic Spree are among the acts that have played there. The Fourth of July parade began in 1965 as decorated bicycles ridden through Randol Mill Park, organized by citizen Dottie Lynn and Church Women United. It now draws around 75,000 spectators. In 2020, the pandemic canceled it for the first time in 55 years. In 2016, community artists painted large star sculptures for a project called The Star of Texas, which promoted the slogan American Dream City. Texas Live!, a $250 million district with a 302-room hotel, opened beside Globe Life Field in August 2018. With the arrival of the United States Bowling Congress and the International Bowling Museum and Hall of Fame, Arlington also became the world headquarters for bowling.

  On the 13th of January 1996, nine-year-old Amber Hagerman was abducted in Arlington. She was found murdered four days later. As of 2025, no one has been arrested or convicted for her murder. Her case led to the creation of the Amber alert system.

  In October 2019, Arlington was chosen over several major American cities as the permanent home of the National Medal of Honor Museum. The museum carries a price of $150 million, and its construction was scheduled to finish in 2024.

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