By: Jerry Flook, Garland Historian
Published in the Garland-Rowlett Messenger, February 2012
In what is now South Garland, about a mile from the intersection of I-30 and Beltline, there’s a road bearing the rather picturesque name of Rose Hill (or Rosehill). Despite the fact that virtually nothing else in that vicinity now bears the name, Rose Hill was a distinct village and farming community during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. I doubt that many Garlandites younger than 50 could now point out its former location.
The village centered on the present-day intersection of Rosehill and Rowlett Roads. Established around 1880, Rose Hill at various times in its history hosted a variety of businesses. The village’s population remained relatively stable over several decades, averaging some 50 to 75 residents between 1890 and 1948.
One early historian of the community claimed that a school was built there around 1878 but was destroyed by a windstorm a year or so later, and that the first dwelling there was built by a Mr. Bryant (probably W. P. Bryant). The first commercial establishment in Rose Hill is believed to have been a general merchandise store opened by Daniel Housley around 1883. In 1884 the community was granted a U.S. post office, which received the name Housley, presumably because it was located in Dan Housley’s store. After Daniel Housley moved to Rowlett, his younger brother, Libson, operated his own store (in a different building) and moved the P.O. there, where he succeeded Daniel as postmaster. The history of the name Rose Hill is not clear, although tradition holds that it was suggested by Mrs. Elias T. Myers, one of the earliest settlers of the neighborhood, and may well predate the name of Housley. The Housley post office was discontinued in 1906.
It is said that Daniel Housley’s first store was destroyed by a windstorm and that he rebuilt a two-story structure with a billiard hall about at a site about 1/4 mile east of the present Rose Hill-Rowlett Road intersection. It was claimed that by 1912 seven different grocery stores had operated in Rose Hill area, as well as 2 saloons, 2 cotton gins, and 5 blacksmith shops. In that year the village had 2 grocery stores, 2 dry goods stores, a drug store, a blacksmith shop, a leather shop, a restaurant, a Baptist church, and a Methodist church. The Rose Hill School at that time was a two-story building erected in 1889 with the school below and a WOW lodge hall above. It was located on Old Rose Hill Road between Rowlett and Bobtown roads. The Baptist church was built next to the school around 1895. The Methodist church was moved into Rose Hill from the nearby Locust Grove community in 1904. A Christian church was established in 1913, erecting their building at the intersection of Rowlett and Bobtown roads. The Christian church building is the only one of the three original Rose Hill churches still standing but it no longer houses that denomination.
The burial ground for the Rose Hill community, Rleasant Ridge Cemetery, was laid out on land donated in 1878 by William and Robert Johnson. The first burial there is said to have been the young daughter of A. N. Keen, the local Methodist preacher.
The mainstay of the economy in Rose Hill, as in all other communities in the black land of Dallas County, was cotton. The last cotton gin there survived until sometime in the 1930s. It is interesting to note that a sorghum syrup mill was operated there around the time of WWI.
In the summers cotton farmers, having their crops “laid by” until harvest, had time on their hands and their summer pastime of choice was baseball. As early as 1891 a Dallas newspaper article reported a game between Rose Hill and Scyene. These early ball clubs were composed of adults and had no connection to the schools. A Rose Hill baseball club is believed to have existed into the 1930s.
A new two-story frame school building was constructed in Rose Hill in 1916, presumably on or near the site of its 1889 predecessor. In 1931 the Locust Grove school district was consolidated with Rose Hill and a new and larger building was erected on a new site on Bobtown Road. The Rose Hill School continued as a county school until 1953, when it was consolidated with the Garland district. The building burned in 1963 and was not rebuilt.
As was usually the case with such farming communities, particularly the ones off major arteries of transportation, Rose Hill’s demise was hastened by the increase in mobility provided by the automobile and the decline of local agriculture. By 1848 only four businesses (including two grocery stores and a service station) remained in the village. Rose Hill was last listed in the Texas Almanac as a community in 1964, and the site was annexed to the City of Garland in 1970. The last surviving business was the Rose Hill (Anderson) Grocery Store, which was demolished sometime in 1974 to make way for the widening of Rowlett Road. Some five or six residences remain from the heyday of the village.
[Thanks to James T. Anderson, Bullard, TX, for contrivutions to the Rose Hill map.]