The Cooke's Meadow neighborhood lies eight-and-a-half
miles east of the Fort Worth Central Business District and includes two original surveys,
the 1873 C.P. Madden Survey and the 1878 Enoch S. Johnson Survey. It is bordered on the
north by I-30, on the east by Cooke's Lane, on the south by Meadowbrook Drive, and on the
west by Morrison Dr.
Cooke's Meadow and Cooke's Lane derive their name from
Jacob Cooke. Cooke owned and operated a campground and trading post in the area of Cooke's
Meadow in the late 1870's for teams coming from Johnson's Station, the small community later
renamed Arlington. The teamsters usually departed over the dirt lane to Birdville, (now Haltom City)
to the north before turning west to gather buffalo hides for later sale in Dallas. This road became
known as Cooke's Lane.
Around 1841, Comanche Indians in the area had been trying to protect
their lands from settlers by generally disturbing the peace. Subsequently soldiers were sent to protect
the settlers. General Ed. Tarrant and his troops, including Col. Wm. Cooke, embarked on an expedition
to find the Indians and followed a lone squaw who had been washing clothes in Village Creek to her camp
and routed the Indians. In this battle only one casualty occurred, an old Indian man who refused to run
or surrender was killed. He was buried where he fell in an unmarked grave.
This was before Major Ripley Arnold established the fort he named
Fort Worth in 1849, and before Texas joined the Union in 1845. When Texas became a state in 1845,
Cooke and Tarrant were honored as peacekeepers by having counties named after them.
An early landowner in Cooke's Meadow was Mrs. George T. Clower,
who purchased land in 1931. In 1953 Louise Gause Ware permitted the Magnolia Gas Company to lay
underground pipelines under her land. She granted further easements in 1974 when Cooke's Meadow
Development Company purchased the land for development.