Wheatland, TX (Dallas County)

Wheatland was ten miles southwest of Dallas and three miles east of Duncanville at the junction of several wagon roads, where Wheatland and Hampton roads intersected in the 1980s, in southern Dallas County. The area of Wheatland was settled about 1845, when a circuit rider founded Wesley Chapel, a Methodist church, nearby. In the 1870s the residents decided they wanted their community on a better road and moved the church, school, and store a short distance. The community was known as Sprowls' Corner, Sprowls' Store, or simply Sprowls, after the first postmaster and store's owner, J. A. Sprowles, when it received a post office in 1879. In 1885 the name of the post office, and therefore the community, was changed to Wheatland at the request of the post office because Sprowls was being confused with Sowers in northeastern Dallas County. Wheatland received its name because of the abundant grain grown in the area. About 1880 the town had two physicians, a dentist, a gristmill and cotton gin, and Sprowls and Schultz, General Merchandise. The citizens of Wheatland wished to incorporate and filed a plat on February 20, 1883, but it was not successful. By 1890 the community had a population of twenty-five, which rose slowly to 100 by 1910. In 1901 the post office was removed. Wheatland remained a separate community until the 1950s. It had a population of eighty-seven and three businesses in 1933 and a population of 100 and four businesses in 1956, the last year it appears in the Texas Almanac.