Rowlett was founded in 1886, when the Missouri, Kansas and Texas Railroad built through the area. A second railroad, the Greenville & Dallas Railroad, reached the town in 1889. Like most other towns, the Bankhead Highway was first designated through downtown Rowlett in 1917, when the Good Roads meeting in Mineral Wells laid out the highway’s “all‐Texas” route. Although it is presumed that auto‐related businesses operated along the highway, there are no such businesses remaining in Rowlett that date to the Bankhead’s heyday. Rowlett remained a small farming community until the construction of Lake Ray Hubbard in 1971, at which time the population boomed as the town became a lakefront community. IH 30 was constructed south of Rowlett in the late 1950s, bypassing the town and the Bankhead Highway. Today, the only remnants of the old Bankhead Highway are a railroad underpass and a ca. 1920 bridge that is partially submerged in the lake.

More Locations in Rowlett

Old Roadway Segment
Shipp Rd. and Main St.

You can’t drive this old segment of the Bankhead, and if it’s been raining a lot, you might not even be able to see if it. If you’re lucky though, you’ll see the old roadway and old bridge that were submerged in 1971 with the creation of Lake Ray Hubbard.

Bridge
Main St. at the railroad tracks.

In the 1920s the highway began to supplant the railroad as the primary mode of transportation for people and goods. Railroads remain an important means of conveyance, and this 1922 bridge, still in use, demonstrates the part of the relationship between the two.