An independent history of Haslet, Tarrant County, Texas

Looking for city services? The official site is haslet.org

Timetable

HasletTexas

Sixty-seven people lived here in 1903. In 2020 the census counted 1,952. This is the story in between: a cattle ranch, a railroad, a one-teacher school, and the airport next door.

Rail stop
1883
Post office
1887
City
1961

Open prairie north of Fort Worth. In 1882 Charles Maloney starts raising shorthorn cattle in the area.

HASLET287 NORTH
Start reading

Haslet began as a railroad stop on a cattle ranch north of Fort Worth. For most of a century it barely changed. Then an airport arrived next door.

01Seven eras, one line

Ride the line

  1. A two-story white clapboard building with a pointed bell tower on the left, an outside staircase, and open prairie around it. A handwritten label reads "Community Church, Masonic Lodge #999, Haslet School, Built 1880, Picture made 1916."
    Church, lodge, and school, 1916

    Era I Before 1883

    Before the railroad

    Open prairie north of Fort Worth, a handful of families, a schoolhouse paid for with campaign money, and an Irish cattleman named Charles L. Maloney.

    • c. 1872 A few families on open prairie
    • 1879 Blue Mound School is built
    • 1882 Charles L. Maloney arrives
    Enter era I

  2. Era II 1883 to 1887

    The railroad and the name

    The Gulf, Colorado and Santa Fe Railway lays track across the prairie, a rancher lets it through, and a stop gets a name.

    • 1883 The Santa Fe comes through
    • 1887 A post office opens
    Enter era II
  3. A baby sits on a blanket in a grassy field. Behind her, across the road, is a row of low wooden commercial buildings along Main Street.
    Main Street, 1923

    Era III 1887 to 1940

    Farm town

    For half a century Haslet was a small shipping point on the Santa Fe, with a one-teacher school, a cotton gin, and fewer than a hundred residents.

    • 1896 One teacher, twenty-one students
    • 1920s Main Street takes shape
    Enter era III
  4. A long table of men in white shirts, several smoking, turn toward the camera during an evening meeting. The print is stamped "Nov 54."
    Founding the fire department, November 1954

    Era IV 1940s to 1960

    War years and slow growth

    Haslet grows for the first time in decades, reaching about 175 people by the late 1940s.

    Enter era IV
  5. An aerial color photograph of a small town grid: tree-lined streets, scattered houses and low buildings, and a railroad line running across the top.
    Haslet from the air, 1983

    Era V 1961

    Incorporation

    On January 16, 1961, the Town of Haslet becomes the City of Haslet.

    • 1961 Haslet incorporates
    Enter era V
  6. A soaked older man in a cap sits in the water tank of a dunking booth behind a chain-link screen, laughing.
    The mayor takes a dunk, June 15, 1996

    Era VI 1989 to 2010

    Alliance changes everything

    An industrial airport opens next door, and Haslet starts turning from a farm town into a commuter suburb.

    • 1989 Alliance Airport opens
    • 1990 to 2010 The suburbs arrive
    Enter era VI

  7. Era VII 2010 to today

    Boom and growing pains

    Warehouses, subdivisions, and highway traffic arrive faster than roads and services can keep up.

    • 2020 Nearly two thousand residents
    Enter era VII

02How it got its name

He has let the railroad through

In 1882, Irish-born Charles L. Maloney and his brother-in-law, H. C. Hurley, came to the Blue Mound area north of Fort Worth. Maloney raised shorthorn Durham cattle, one of the first herds in the county.2

When the Santa Fe asked for a right-of-way across his ranch, Maloney said no. Then Mrs. Maloney remarked that it would be nice to be able to ride the train into Fort Worth. Maloney changed his mind and told the crew they could come through.2

He has let us go through.

A railroad workman, as told in the City of Haslet's local history. The contractor, who came from Haslett, Michigan, is said to have answered: "We'll name this stop Has let."

Two sources, two stories

City of Haslet

Named for the rancher's permission

The contractor, "Joel C. Harmmond," hears the workman's words and names the stop after them. The city dates this to 1886.2

Handbook of Texas

Named for a Michigan hometown

The community "was named for the Michigan hometown of the railroad's contractor." Maloney is not mentioned.1

The accounts overlap more than they conflict: both point to Haslett, Michigan. The contractor's surname appears as "Harmmond" in the city's history and "Hammond" in other retellings; we have not yet found a primary record that settles it. Read the full era

03By the numbers

Sixty-seven people in 1903

Fewer than three hundred in every count through 1976.1Then Alliance Airport opened next door, and the line on the chart below starts to climb.3

Growth, 1903 to 2020
29×

From 67 residents to 1,952.

Highest count before Alliance
276

Recorded in 1976, fifteen years after incorporation.

Estimate, July 2025
5,267

Up from 1,952 at the 2020 census.5

Residents of Haslet, 1903 to 2025, on a true time scale. Early figures from the Handbook of Texas, several of them approximate ("mid-1930s," "late 1940s"). 1990 to 2020 from U.S. Census Bureau decennial counts. The dashed line shows the Census Bureau's Vintage 2025 annual estimates for July of each year, which start from a revised 2020 base of 1,975.
View as a table
YearPopulationSource
190367Handbook of Texas
191550Handbook of Texas
Mid-1930sabout 69Handbook of Texas
Late 1940sabout 175Handbook of Texas
Mid-1960sabout 250Handbook of Texas
1976276Handbook of Texas
1990795U.S. Census Bureau
20001,134U.S. Census Bureau
20101,517U.S. Census Bureau
20201,952U.S. Census Bureau
July 20212,386 (estimate)U.S. Census Bureau, Vintage 2025 estimate
July 20223,406 (estimate)U.S. Census Bureau, Vintage 2025 estimate
July 20233,885 (estimate)U.S. Census Bureau, Vintage 2025 estimate
July 20244,746 (estimate)U.S. Census Bureau, Vintage 2025 estimate
July 20255,267 (estimate)U.S. Census Bureau, Vintage 2025 estimate

04Growing pains

What growth brought

Jobs, money, and new neighbors. Also traffic, train crossings, and planes overhead. Both lists are here, each item with its source.

  1. 01

    An economic engine next door

    AllianceTexas, the 27,000-acre development built around Alliance Airport, is home to 602 companies and directly supports 73,134 jobs. Its developer, Hillwood, reports $142.9 billion in regional economic impact over 36 years, from a study it commissioned. Haslet is one of the cities that collects property taxes from it.

    6 Hillwood press release

  2. 02

    The largest film studio in Texas

    In 2025 Taylor Sheridan's SGS Studios, Hillwood, and Paramount Television opened a 450,000-square-foot production campus at AllianceTexas, the largest operating film and TV studio in the state. The second season of Landman was the first to film there.

    7 Hillwood press release

  3. 03

    Incomes well above the state

    Census Bureau survey data for 2020 to 2024 put Haslet's median household income at about $169,000, more than twice the Texas median of about $78,500. For a town this small the margin of error is wide, roughly $24,000 either way.

    8 Census Reporter, from U.S. Census Bureau American Community Survey

  1. 01

    Roads built for a smaller town

    A project to widen U.S. 287 and rebuild its frontage roads between I-35W and Avondale-Haslet Road was first introduced in 2019 and still waits on funding. "If I can't travel a mile or it takes me 20 or 30 minutes, there's something wrong with this picture," Mayor Gary Hulsey told WFAA.

    9 WFAA

  2. 02

    Waiting on the train

    Avondale-Haslet Road crosses the BNSF tracks at street level on a two-lane road that carries about 11,000 vehicles a day. The mayor recalled four police cars and an ambulance waiting 40 minutes for a train to clear. In late 2025 the city sought state help for a $79 million bridge.

    10 NBC 5 Dallas-Fort Worth

  3. 03

    Aircraft noise

    In July 2019, as Amazon prepared to add daily cargo flights, the FAA granted Alliance Airport $8 million to study and reduce noise on nearby homes. Sound insulation has since gone into homes in the Rivers Edge neighborhood, about two miles north of the airport.

    11 Community Impact12 Community Impact

  4. 04

    A Haslet address is not always Haslet

    Many subdivisions with Haslet mailing addresses, including Sendera Ranch, Willow Springs Ranch, and Lonesome Dove, sit outside city limits. The city does not provide their water or trash service.

    13 City of Haslet

05See it yourself

Photographs from the Haslet Public Library

The Haslet Public Library has shared photographs and newspaper clippings with The Portal to Texas History at UNT Libraries: 144 items across eleven decades, including 91 photographs and 35 newspaper clippings.4 Every photograph here carries its full credit line and links back to its record.

See the photographs Browse all 144 items at the Portal
A dirt street curving past a row of false-front stores with signs for Gammill and Baltzelle Groceries, a horse-drawn wagon, utility poles, and a depot-style building at right. A label reads "Haslet in early 1900's."Haslet in the early 1900s
About 1900Two young women stand on a long front walk before a two-story brick school with arched doorways and "Public School" and a star lettered in the gable.The original Haslet school
About 1930An older man in a white shirt and patterned tie stands on a dirt roadside holding a hat, with a line of railroad boxcars passing behind him.Dr. J. H. Gammell and the train
1950A smiling man in a firefighter's helmet and heavy coat stands beside a fire truck door lettered "Haslet Fire Dept."Chief Jack Smith
1950sAn aerial color photograph of a small town grid: tree-lined streets, scattered houses and low buildings, and a railroad line running across the top.Haslet from the air, 1983
June 1983A soaked older man in a cap sits in the water tank of a dunking booth behind a chain-link screen, laughing.The mayor takes a dunk
June 15, 1996A small filling station with a hipped roof and tall glass-topped gas pumps, a 1920s automobile parked at the pumps, and a man leaning on one pump.Hanes Filling Station
1920sA small one-story white church with a gabled porch on brick columns, a house far in the left background and a barn at right, on flat open ground.Haslet Baptist Church, 1923
March 25, 1923
Sources13 citedHandbook of Texas Online · City of Haslet · U.S. Census Bureau · The Portal to Texas History and more
  1. Haslet, TXHandbook of Texas Online, Texas State Historical Association (Brian Hart). Accessed Sep 24, 2026.
  2. History of CityCity of Haslet. Accessed Sep 24, 2026.
  3. Decennial Census counts, Haslet city, TexasU.S. Census Bureau. Accessed Sep 24, 2026.
  4. Haslet Public Library partner collectionThe Portal to Texas History, UNT Libraries. Accessed Sep 24, 2026.
  5. City and Town Population Totals: 2020 to 2025 (SUB-EST2025)U.S. Census Bureau, Vintage 2025 estimates. Accessed Sep 24, 2026.
  6. AllianceTexas Drives $142.9 Billion in Economic Impact for North Texas (Feb. 24, 2026)Hillwood press release. Accessed Sep 24, 2026.
  7. Hillwood and SGS Studios Launch Largest Production Campus in TexasHillwood press release. Accessed Sep 24, 2026.
  8. Haslet, TX profile (ACS 2024 5-year estimates)Census Reporter, from U.S. Census Bureau American Community Survey. Accessed Sep 24, 2026.
  9. How small Haslet, Texas is dealing with a booming populationWFAA. Accessed Sep 24, 2026.
  10. Haslet seeks funding for bridge to reduce traffic congestion (Dec. 23, 2025)NBC 5 Dallas-Fort Worth. Accessed Sep 24, 2026.
  11. Fort Worth Alliance Airport receives $8 million grant to minimize noise from new Amazon flights (July 9, 2019)Community Impact. Accessed Sep 24, 2026.
  12. Fort Worth seeks $15M from FAA for noise abatement at Alliance Airport (May 2023)Community Impact (Mark Fadden). Accessed Sep 24, 2026.
  13. Welcome to Water UtilitiesCity of Haslet. Accessed Sep 24, 2026.

Spot an error? Corrections are welcome.