Bedford

Lakes Trail Region
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2400 SCHOOL LANE

The region around the Tarrant County community of Bedford first attracted settlers in the 1840s including pioneers like Milton Moore, a settler from North Carolina who’s first service to the region included establishing a small school in his own log cabin. Early Bedford settler Weldon Bobo and his fellow Tennesseans set up a general store and gristmill, calling the developing community “Bedford” after their home county back east. Following a spike in Bedord’s population (in excess of one thousand citizens by 1882, a considerable number for the rural location), the community established Bedford College to fulfill the area’s education needs. Although Bedford’s growth spurt slowed down after the turn of the 19th century, citizens built another school in 1912 to replace the Bedford College which had burned in 1893. The new Bedford School and its Bulldog mascot would serve the community for the next five decades until students were moved to another district and the building abandoned. Despite years of deterioration, including a devastating fire that destroyed the second floor in the 1990s, the Bedford School survived somewhat intact and today, restored to its original design complete with hand-stamped tin ceilings and period-style pigmented plaster blackboards, it serves as Bedford’s heritage museum. The School, listed on the National Register of Historic Places, features a visitor center, museum, meeting rooms, a 1915 classroom, and a 149-seat auditorium.

Bedford also hosts the Northeast Tarrant County Civil War Veterans Memorial, located alongside the historic Bedford Cemetery. The memorial, four tons of Georgia gray granite, honors over five hundred veterans of the Civil War from both armies who lived, owned land, died, or are buried in northeast Tarrant County.

Mapped location of Bedford

Bedford

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