Lancaster's Founding Families & Homes

Before Lancaster was a square, it was a scatter of farms along Ten Mile and Keller branches, settled by families who came west with the Peters Colony in the 1840s. This residential loop steps off the rebuilt downtown to follow that older story — the homes those pioneers raised, the schools they bonded for, and the cemetery where the first generation was laid to rest. You'll see a Victorian frame house designed by a noted Dallas architect, walk past the rolling farmland of the old Pleasant Run settlement where a Texas Ranger turned merchant built a fifteen-room store-and-home, and end at a burying ground holding a Revolutionary War veteran and the area's earliest settlers. The buildings here are quieter than the storefronts on the square, but they carry the names — Strain, Rawlins, Miller — that founded the town. Take it slow and read the dates carved into the stone.