Lewisville was formally incorporated after a January 15, 1925, election, but the settlement as a community actually began about 80 years earlier.

In the 1840s, the Republic of Texas gave a grant to the Texas Emigration and Land Company to bring 600 families to what is now Denton County. Each family was to receive 640 acres of land, bachelors receiving 320 acres. By 1846, the necessary families had arrived, and Denton County was formed. The first settlers to the Lewisville area were the families of John and Augustus King, who migrated to the area in 1844. Following their lead, John and James Holford brought several families from Platt, Missouri and settled on the western part of the King land.

Many of the original “new” buildings were located very near the railroad (later the MKT and now the Union Pacific), but flooding on the Elm Fork of the Trinity River caused those establishments to be moved uphill and west to the area of Mill and Main Streets. A grist mill, constructed near the location of today's Sonic Drive In, firmly anchored the settlement in the new location. By the time of the incorporation election in 1925, the Lewisville community had grown to a population of about 850 residents and was served by five cotton gins and two saloons.

The January 1925 incorporation election marked the beginning of the municipality as we now know it, with a vote of 109-92. County Judge Jackson certified the election of the town’s mayor and aldermen March 10, and the first official town meeting was held March 16, 1925. The first ordinances regulated medicine shows and set speed limits for automobiles at 18 mph. The taxable value of property in the newly incorporated town was $779,086.

Index of 1930 U.S. Census for Lewisville

The population of Lewisville remained stable until the 1940s, building to a total of 1,500 people in 1950. By 1960, the Corps of Engineers had built the Lewisville Lake Dam and U.S. 77 (now IH-35E) was moved west to replace Mill Street as the primary north-south road running between Dallas and Denton. Lewisville’s 1960 population was almost 4,000, and during the late 1960s, Hunt Properties bought and had annexed into Lewisville more than 2,500 acres known as the Lewisville Valley Addition.

The 1970 population had grown to about 9,200 people, but the big boom was just beginning. Home builders discovered a Lewisville eager for growth. Entire neighborhoods were built seemingly overnight, and even with a recession during the last half of the 1970s, Lewisville’s population had blossomed to almost 25,000 by 1980.

The decade of the ‘80s saw continued residential development, but job growth also began to take off, as Lewisville was identified as an employment center. The 1990 population hit 46,500 people, and at the beginning of the 21st century, Lewisville was home to almost. 90,000 people and 3,600 businesses.

Growth continued at a slower pace through the first two decades of the new century, reaching 100,000 people in about 2015. After the Castle Hills community was annexed into the city in November 2021, Lewisville became one of the 30 largest cities in Texas with a population of more than 130,000. But the community's rich and colorful past is still remembered and celebrated through the Lewisville Collection history archive and the Lewisville Looks Back project.

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