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video from ICTN (Irving Community Television Network) shows the unveiling of the Irving Heritage Society's historical markers for the Estelle Community and the nearby Harrington Cemetery on June 22, 2018. The video notes that the old school's foundation was discovered in the woods here back in 2002, leading to renewed interest in Estelle. The marker reads:
The Estelle community, halfway between present-day Irving and Grapevine, evolved from scattered farms on Henry Burgoon's 1853 land grant. Milton Beall obtained a post office in 1881 to serve a population of about 600 from the surrounding farms. He named the post office "Estell" after a Grapevine architect, but post office officials recorded the name as "Estelle." Beall was the first postmaster.
Henry Burgoon became postmaster in 1882 and served until the office closed in 1904. In 1888, he opened a general store that also housed the post office.
By 1885, Estelle was a shipping point for cotton, wheat, and feed corn on a stage route to Grapevine and Dallas. The settlement had a steam cotton gin, 2 churches, a blacksmith, 2 doctors, and a school. Bear Creek Baptist Church, founded in Estelle in 1853, operates today in Irving as First Baptist Church-Las Colinas.
The Harrington family donated land for a school, teachers' house, and Masonic Lodge in 1883. Residents built a two-story frame building in 1884. It housed the school on the first floor and the Estelle Masonic Lodge on the second floor. The school offered grades 1-11.
In 1916, the community built a two-story brick schoolhouse just east of the original school building and moved all classes there. During the 1920s, the school began offering only grades 1-7. High school students attended Irving High School.
To the south of the school site, Bryant Harrington established a family cemetery about 1891.
By the 1940s, Estelle's population had dwindled. The Sowers Common School District took in the Estelle school in 1948, and Irving ISD annexed Sowers CSD in 1955. The Estelle Masonic Lodge moved to Euless in 1958. The City of Irving annexed Estelle in 1968.
This is the site of the schoolhouses, the teachers' house, and the Masonic Lodge.
The Handbook of Texas Online (see below) says about the same thing in their article about Estelle, but it mentions that the community was a rest stop for travelers between Farmers Branch and Bird's Fort (which became Birdville, now part of Fort Worth). By 1885, the population was 75, dropping to 50 by 1890, and from 1930 to 1948, the population was 38. By the time of Estelle's incorporation into Irving in 1968, Sowers had also disappeared.
The Harrington Cemetery is within site of this marker, a well-maintained cemetery that is the final resting place of land donor, Bryant Harrington, and his family, and worth a visit. On the other hand, it's probably best to leave the school foundation in peace out in the woods unless accompanied by an expert. Not only does this property, which is maintained by the Irving Independent School District, line up with DFW Airport, where there plenty of signs warning against trespass into areas where you shouldn't be, but an added bonus is that, yes, there are occasional western diamondback rattlesnake sightings here in Dallas County. Watch your step, watch where you sit, watch where you put your hands.