Double Springs to Keller: Rails, Roots & Stone Cairns

North Tarrant County hides one of its strangest pioneer relics in plain sight: a set of rare stone burial cairns at the old Mount Gilead settlement, low piles of fieldstone heaped over early graves in a way seldom seen in Texas. This driving tour pairs that haunting site with the broader story of how this corner of the county came to be — the Mount Gilead church and cemetery that anchored the settlement, and the railroad stop a few miles south that grew into the city of Keller. The route runs from the old stone cairns down to Keller's own founding marker and its first Baptist church, ending at the city's history museum. It's a short drive linking deep-rooted country settlements to the rail town that eventually eclipsed them. Park before reading, and at Mount Gilead, take a quiet moment with those stone cairns — they are older than almost anything else around.