City of Rowlett

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.