The History of Flower Mound, Texas

The landmark came first. A 12.5-acre hill rising about 50 feet above the Blackland Prairie, blanketed in native grasses and dozens of kinds of wildflowers in bloom season, was striking enough that 19th-century settlers named it The Flower Mound and used it as a gathering place — religious camp meetings were held there in the 1840s. Permanent settlement followed in the 1850s. For a century the area stayed rural, and the mound remained its defining feature, a patch of untouched prairie that the town would eventually organize itself around and name itself after.

Before the suburbs, this was ranch land, and its most glamorous stretch belonged to Edward Marcus, chairman of the Neiman Marcus department store. Marcus kept a farm here, an unlikely bit of department-store history for a rural crossroads. In 1961 the residents voted to incorporate as a town, on February 25, specifically to avoid being annexed by the city of Irving; Bob Rheudasil became the first mayor.

Once incorporated, Flower Mound grew into a planned, prosperous suburb, and it did so with an unusual emphasis on green space and controlled development — a legacy, in part, of that famous mound. The town became known for large homes, strong schools, and careful attention to parks and trails, growing into one of the wealthier communities in the metro. And The Mound itself is preserved, still blooming every spring, the literal namesake at the center of it all.