Florence Hill, TX

Florence Hill was a mile north of the shores of Joe Pool Lake, six miles south of Grand Prairie, and six miles west of Duncanville in southwestern Dallas County. The site of Florence Hill was in the original land grant of Thomas J. Tone. According to one account, the community received its name from the hilly terrain and from David W. Florence, an Alabama native who moved there from Van Zandt County in 1871. Another story relates that the community was named for Florence, who donated land for a school in the 1890s, and for Billy Hill. In the 1896–97 school year the Florence Hill school had one teacher and an enrollment of sixty-eight. Around 1940 Florence Hill's population was twenty, and the community comprised several houses, an athletic field, a general store, a school, and a church. At that time the surrounding farms raised alfalfa, corn, oats, wheat, and milo maize. During the 1940s the establishment of military and industrial facilities in nearby Grand Prairie led to enormous population growth in the area. In 1952 the Florence Hill common school district received funds under a federal program to help schools overburdened from increased population due to new federal projects and installations. By 1964, the last year that Florence Hill was listed in the Texas Almanac, the community's population was 150. Afterward Florence Hill eventually became part of Grand Prairie.