Sowers Community

Sowers Community. . The Sowers community was named for Edmund Sowers, who purchased land in northwest Dallas County in 1856. For many years he worked as a farmer, and in 1877, he built a blacksmith shop and general store on his property near today's intersection of Belt Line Road and Pioneer Drive. Over time a small cluster of shops sprouted up to serve the farmers in the surrounding area, and eventually the region came to be known as Sowers., In 1880, Edmund Sowers donated land for a community cemetery and a community school. The Sowers Cemetery is located on Pioneer Drive, just east of Belt Line Road. A school building was built on land adjacent to the cemetery. In 1881, Sowers applied for a post office, which he operated from his general store., Sowers and his wife Freelove held annual Fourth of July picnics and other social gatherings that were very popular. The couple had no children of their own, but raised six orphans. In the 1880s, the community was home to a church, school, blacksmith shop, drug store, and two steam gristmills. For a time, the Sowers community was the most populous area between Dallas and Fort Worth., During the 1950s, the City of Irving began to grow and annexed the area that had been known as Sowers. Today, only the cemetery remains as the link to the original Sowers community., Captions , (Photo #1) Pioneer Physician Dr. D.W. Gilbert , Dr. D. W. Gilbert was born in 1854 in Mississippi. He moved to the Sowers community in the early 1880s and was one of the first physicians in northwest Dallas County. , (Photo #2) Edmund and Freelove Sowers , (Photo #3) Sowers School , The Sowers School started as a community school in a log cabin on an acre of land donated by Edmund Sowers in 1880. This is a photo of the school in 1925.