Arlington (pop. 394,266) is a residential city and recreation center in northeastern Texas. It lies roughly midway between Dallas and Fort Worth and is part of the Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington metropolitan statistical area, one of the largest urban centers in the United States. Arlington lies in Tarrant County and has a council-manager government.
Retail trade, hotels and entertainment, and health, educational, and social services are leading sources of employment in Arlington. The manufacture of machinery, processed foods, semiconductors, and transportation equipment is also important to the area’s economy. The city is home to the University of Texas at Arlington. The Texas Rangers of Major League Baseball and the Dallas Cowboys of the National Football League play in the city. Other attractions include an amusement park and the Old Town historic district. The River Legacy Parks, along the Trinity River on the northern edge of the city, offer hiking and cycling trails.
The Arlington area was home to the Caddo and other Native American groups before white settlers arrived. The land was part of Mexico until 1835, when it became part of the Republic of Texas. Texas General Edward Tarrant attacked the Caddo in the Battle of Village Creek in 1841. Later that year, after most Native Americans had moved from the area, Texans established Bird’s Fort in the area. The fort was soon abandoned, however.
Texas became part of the United States in 1845. In 1848, the Texas Rangers, a frontier defense organization, assigned Colonel Middleton Tate Johnson to a trading post in the area. Johnson owned land nearby, and a community that grew there became known as Johnson’s Station. During the 1870’s, the Texas and Pacific Railway Company asked Andrew Hayter, a Presbyterian minister, to help them establish a rail line north of this area. They also asked him to set boundaries for a settlement near the rail line, between Dallas and Fort Worth. Hayter named this settlement Arlington, after the Virginia home of Confederate General Robert E. Lee. Arlington was incorporated as a town in 1884. It became known as a market town for products from nearby farms. Cotton was one of the area’s leading cash crops.
During the 1930’s, Arlington gained fame as a center for recreation. A horse racetrack and gambling casino drew many visitors to the city until Texas banned gambling in 1937. The city’s population boomed after 1950, partly as a result of the city’s annexation of nearby land. Rapid growth continued through the first decades of the 2000’s. In 2020, Arlington’s Globe Life Field hosted baseball’s first neutral-site World Series, a result of precautions taken during the COVID-19 pandemic.
