Elm Fork Echoes

Elm Fork Echoes is the journal produced by the Peters Colony Historical Society of Dallas County. The Society was chartered in 1971 in order to preserve the history of Carrollton, Farmers Branch, and northwest Dallas County, and to promote genealogical research among its members. The area of North Central Texas ultimately known as the Peters’ Colony land grant was a large expanse of terrain granted to the Texas Emigration and Land Company, organized by William C. Peters in Kentucky. The settlers who came to northwest Dallas County were primarily from the Ohio River Valley. Claiming their land under the Republic’s generous terms, they established farms and small businesses; eventually, numerous settlements sprung up around their farms, their businesses, their churches, and their schools. Many of the charter members of the Society were descendants of some of these settlers. The members have worked tirelessly to preserve the history of those early settlers in print and to record their own reminiscences of by-gone days. Each issue of Elm Fork Echoes, at first a bi-annual publication and later an annual, is a compilation of articles and photographs about the pioneers and early founders of Carrollton and northwest Dallas County. One may learn about the early pioneer who hosted worshippers in her cabin; about the matriarch who nearly single-handedly ended segregation in local schools; about local cemeteries and Society members’ efforts to survey them. These resources provide a vivid picture of the growth of a town from a wilderness to urban suburb.