Estelle Community

Estelle Community. The Estelle Community, halfway between present-day Irving and Grapevine, evolved from scattered farms on Henry Burgoon's 1853 land grant. Milton Beall obtained a post office in 1881 to serve a population of about 600 from the surrounding farms. He named the post office "Estell" after a Grapevine architect, but post office officials recorded the name as "Estelle." Beall was the first postmaster., Henry Burgoon became postmaster in 1882, and served until the office closed in 1904. In 1888, he opened a general store that also housed the post office. , By 1885, Estelle was a shipping point for cotton, wheat, and feed corn on a stage route to Grapevine and Dallas. The settlement had a steam cotton gin, 2 churches, a blacksmith, 2 doctors, and a school. Bear Creek Baptist Church, founded in Estelle in 1853, operates today in Irving as First Baptist Church–Las Colinas. , The Harrington family donated land for a school, teachers' house, and Masonic lodge in 1883. Residents built a two-story frame building in 1884. It housed the school on the first floor and the Estelle Masonic lodge on the second floor. The school offered grades 1-11. , In 1916, the community built a two-story brick schoolhouse just east of the original school building and moved all classes there. During the 1920s, the school began offering only grades 1-7. High school students attended Irving High School. , To the south of the school site, Bryant Harrington established a family cemetery about 1891. , By the 1940s, Estelle's population had dwindled. The Sowers Common School District took in the Estelle school in 1948, and Irving ISD annexed Sowers CSD in 1955. The Estelle Masonic lodge moved to Euless in 1958. The City of Irving annexed Estelle in 1968. , This is the site of the schoolhouses, the teachers' house, and the Masonic lodge.