Argyle is a city in Denton County,

Texas Texas ( , ; or ) is the most populous U.S. state, state in the South Central United States, South Central region of the United States. It borders Louisiana to the east, Arkansas to the northeast, Oklahoma to the north, New Mexico to the we ...

, United States, with a population of 5,503 as of 2022. It is a

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Fort Worth Fort Worth is a city in the U.S. state of Texas and the county seat of Tarrant County, Texas, Tarrant County, covering nearly into Denton County, Texas, Denton, Johnson County, Texas, Johnson, Parker County, Texas, Parker, and Wise County, Te ...

History

The first European settlement, consisting of a few families, occurred in the Argyle area in the 1850s. The place was then known as Pilot Knob or Waintown. The settlement gradually acquired a few amenities in the late 1800s: a school in 1875, a

Baptist Baptists are a Christian denomination, denomination within Protestant Christianity distinguished by baptizing only professing Christian believers (believer's baptism) and doing so by complete Immersion baptism, immersion. Baptist churches ge ...

church in 1876, and a

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in 1878. The community was formally founded and renamed Argyle in 1881, after the Texas and Pacific

railroad Rail transport (also known as train transport) is a means of transport using wheeled vehicles running in railway track, tracks, which usually consist of two parallel steel railway track, rails. Rail transport is one of the two primary means of ...

built a track through the area. Some believe a railroad surveyor named the town after a garden in

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. However, others believe the town to be named after the region of

Argyll Argyll (; archaically Argyle; , ), sometimes called Argyllshire, is a Shires of Scotland, historic county and registration county of western Scotland. The county ceased to be used for local government purposes in 1975 and most of the area ...

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. Also around this time was when Sam Bass, an infamous outlaw who stole $60,000 in gold coins from the

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, was rumored to have stashed the gold in a cave. Sam Bass died when he was 27, and it was rumored he never lived to retrieve the gold. Growth was very slow during the nineteenth century, and by 1890 Argyle only had a population of 148. The town did boast several agriculture-related industries, such as

grist mill A gristmill (also: grist mill, corn mill, flour mill, feed mill or feedmill) grinds cereal grain into flour and Wheat middlings, middlings. The term can refer to either the grinding mechanism or the building that holds it. Grist is grain that h ...

s, general stores, and a

cotton gin A cotton gin—meaning "cotton engine"—is a machine that quickly and easily separates cotton fibers from their seeds, enabling much greater productivity than manual cotton separation.. Reprinted by McGraw-Hill, New York and London, 1926 (); ...

. In 1885 Argyle built a two-story brick school, and population grew until it reached 238 in 1930. A bank was also established in 1906, a little red brick building with a drugstore in the front. The bank wasn't around long before it was robbed in 1912. The robbers made away with $1700 and were never caught. Electricity and telephone service became available in the mid-1930s. The

Great Depression The Great Depression was a severe global economic downturn from 1929 to 1939. The period was characterized by high rates of unemployment and poverty, drastic reductions in industrial production and international trade, and widespread bank and ...

took its toll on the Argyle area, and the population declined to only ninety in 1950. Argyle incorporated as a separate city on September 19, 1960, with M.H. Wilson as the first mayor. Gradually the town grew in population as more people from the Dallas–Fort Worth area discovered its rural charm. By the 1970s a number of retail establishments were located in Argyle, and the population reached 1,575 in 1990, and doubled from that figure to 3,282 at the 2010 census. The high rate of growth is expected to continue as part of the general development of northern areas in the Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex.

Geography

According to the

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, the town has a total area of , of which is land and , or 0.41%, is water.

Demographics

As of the 2020 United States census, there were 4,403 people, 1,582 households, and 1,301 families residing in the city.

Education and local notes

The Argyle Independent School District serves the town of Argyle and neighboring areas. The district contains five schools: Hilltop Elementary (grades PreK–5), Argyle West Elementary (grades PreK–5), intermediate (grade 6), middle (grades 7–8), and a high school (grades 9–12). Argyle High School is in classification 4A D1 for UIL. In addition, Liberty Christian School is also located in Argyle, offering grades PK3–12. Argyle has established a police department and a municipal

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, and has a low

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rate. The town sponsored an annual

bluegrass music Bluegrass music is a genre of American roots music that developed in the 1940s in the Appalachian region of the United States. The genre derives its name from the band Bill Monroe and the Blue Grass Boys. Bluegrass has roots in African America ...

festival, but this ended in 2012.

Notable people

JoJo Fletcher Joelle Hannah Fletcher (born November 1, 1990) is an American television personality. She was a contestant on the The Bachelor (American season 20), twentieth season of American Broadcasting Company, ABC's ''The Bachelor (American TV series), The ...

, Reality Star of the Bachelorette/Bachelor * Walt Garrison, former professional football player for the

Dallas Cowboys The Dallas Cowboys are a professional American football team based in the Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex. The Cowboys compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member of the National Football Conference (NFC) NFC East, East division. T ...

Notes

References

External links

Town of Argyle official website
* {{authority control Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex Cities in Texas Cities in Denton County, Texas Populated places established in 1881 1881 establishments in Texas