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City of Irving hits triple digits

By Bobbie Krumm
Staff Writer

In the 1930s, it was a hangout for Bonnie and Clyde. In the 1950s, three gangsters helped its officials keep crime out. In the 1970s, it was home to the largest airport in America.

It is North Lake’s hometown of Irving, and 2003 is a banner year for the city as it celebrates its 100th birthday.

Like any birthday bash, this one wouldn’t be complete without a look back, and what a colorful century it’s been. Today a thriving community of nearly 200,000 residents, Irving started on just 80 acres of land.

When founders and fellow railroad surveyors J.O. Schultz and Otis Brown finished work on a railway to connect Dallas and Fort Worth in 1903, according to the City of Irving Web site, they envisioned founding a town along the rail line they had just created. They bought 80 acres from a local family and sold their first lot in December 1903. Along with the auction, a large barbecue was served, prospective buyers were brought in on a special train from Dallas and the area soon flourished.

The origin of the city’s name has always been debated. Irving Public Library records show at one time the town was called Gorbett, then later Kit.

In a 1932 Irving Herald interview, Otis Brown said, “I expect I have been asked a thousand times why Irving was given this name, and I want to say it was just picked, and not named for any certain purpose or reason or any person.”

But son Stanley Brown claimed in a 1973 article in the Dallas Morning News that his mother was responsible for naming the city after her favorite author, Washington Irving.

Years later, the Irving City Council approved an ordinance declaring the “origin of the city of Irving’s name is derived from America’s first man of letters, Washington Irving.”

The modern commercial growth of Irving can be traced back to the opening of the Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport in 1974. State-of-the-art and bigger than the island of Manhattan, the impressive facility brought major international businesses, more people and more clout to the city of Irving.

Hoping to cash in on the growth, landowner Ben Carpenter set out to develop a privately funded, master-planned community of 7,000 acres he called Las Colinas. Today it boasts more than one thousand corporations as well as homes, schools and recreation facilities. In 1977, it became home to the seventh Dallas Community College District campus, North Lake College.

But what would the founders think of today’s Irving? “The founders would have mixed feelings of the growth of Irving,” said Dr. Yolanda Romero, history professor at North Lake. “The founding families believe that too much emphasis has been on north Irving and Las Colinas while south Irving has been neglected.”