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HISTORY
The gated community of Mira Vista
lies approximately seven miles west, southwest of the Fort Worth
Central Business District with Hawthorne Park Estates to the
north of Mira Vista. Both are included in the 1872 Nathan Proctor
Survey and the 1874 John F. Heath Survey.
Mira Vista and Hawthorne Estates
were part of the Rall Ranch, founded by E.G. Rall in 1917. The
2,500 acre ranch extended from what is now Winscott Rd. in Benbrook
on the west to the old Granbury Rd. on the east. The original
rock ranch house, which the family called the camp house, stood
on land called the Cliffs, which is now under water just below
the south side of the dam of Benbrook Lake. They believe the
house may still be standing in that deep part of the lake, now
a house for catfish. The Benbrook Dam and part of the lake covered
about 600 acres of Rall land.
After World War II, before the
dam and lake were built, a new ranch house was constructed on
the westernmost knuckle knoll of the ranch with a kitchen window
view of Pecan Valley, now a golf course. The ranchers called
the hills on the ranch knuckle knolls because they resembled
knuckles to them. That ranch house was torn down in about 1994
to make room for more new homes in Mira Vista, however the street
where it stood is named Old Homestead Road. E.G. Rall died in
1944, but his son, Budge Rall and his wife and family occupied
the new ranch house until the property sold to the Mira Vista
developers in the 1980's.
The ranch property was very rough.
The only way to cross it was by horseback, jeep or pickup truck.
Dirks Road was a dirt trail. Most of Mira Vista is in what was
called the Big Pasture, with some of the lower areas on the west
in what was the north and south Dixon fields, named for a family
named Dixon who apparently lived there in the very early days.
A bull pasture was near Dirks and Granbury Roads.
The economy in the late 1980's
forced the Mira Vista into the RTC, to be bought in 1991 by Richard
Rainwater, the present owner. Approximately 300 families live
in Mira Vista today, with new areas and lots opening regularly.
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