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Historic Rockwall County town is poised for population explosion 03/18/2001 By Michael E. Young / The Dallas Morning News
FATE – Fate's destiny takes shape on freshly churned pasture.
In a busy area called Sleepy Hollow, new homes poke up from the dark earth like the first shoots of spring. The tracks of heavy construction equipment scar virgin back yards. Tiny canyons etched by winter rains slice the soil.
A trio of live oaks anchors one long block of houses, and it's not hard imagining mooing cattle jostling beneath their branches during last summer's heat.
But now contractors' trucks line the narrow streets. The damp smells of just-turned soil and sawdust and fresh concrete hang heavy in the air. Prospective buyers slowly circle the new neighborhood, clutching bright brochures.
What they'll find is a suburb-in-the-making that now offers barely a hint of the suburban life.
This is the new Fate, the first pop, pop, pop in an explosion of growth poised at the edges of the tiny Rockwall County town. In the last year alone, four developers linked their land to Fate's future.
The city that, through luck and timing, missed the first suburban waves washing across the Dallas area will be transformed in a just a few years. Whether that luck and timing were good or bad depends on whom you ask.
"People here fought for a long time to keep it so you could hear the crickets at night," said Mary Elizabeth Crawford, whose husband, Bill, was mayor for 32 years.
But for families just starting out, or those tired of city living, the prospect of a reasonably priced home on half an acre can be a powerful lure.
The Rev. Billy Norris is one recent arrival, though he serves one of the city's oldest institutions, the First Baptist Church of Fate.
His family bought a home in Sleepy Hollow, on a street called Jerome Prairie.
"We really like it," Mr. Norris said. "I have a wife and a 21-month-old son, and it's certainly an advantage to have a big yard."
But he realizes that with every new house, the old Fate changes a bit more. And though people here seem too polite to voice their complaints, "I'm sure there's some resistance in the community. I can understand that," Mr. Norris said.
"But I sense its inevitability, and I think other people sense that, too. To me, as a pastor, it's exciting that more people will be coming here."
For a while, at least, this will be a city-in-the-making.
The nearest fast-food outlet is a few exits down the highway. The only grocery store in town doubles as the gas station, where a young man in a Stetson, Wranglers and well-worn ropers pumped 23 gallons of regular into an old pickup truck.
City Hall occupies a sliver of a small block of stores in what passes for downtown. Locals praise the fare at the city's only eatery, the Fate Family Restaurant, where painted signs promise "Fine Food" above a couple of the offerings, "Charco-Broiled Burgers" and "Fried Catfish."
Out on State Highway 66, road signs mark the city's edges: "Fate, Pop. 475."
Of course, that was back in 1990, when the census counted 162 households within the Fate city limits. Things have grown since – by 22 people, according to the U.S. Census Bureau, or by several hundred according to local and regional officials.
Residential water customers within the city limits jumped from roughly 200 five years ago to 350 in January. If an average of three people live in each home, that pushes Fate's population to about 1,000, which matches former mayor and current city administrator Gerry Boren's estimate.
And when the city punches a new 8-inch waterline across Interstate 30, the floodgates of development can open.
"I've got 190 lots out here that will be built in six different phases," said J.O. Richey, developer of the new Northview Village community on the south side of I-30. "Tommy Goff [of Goff Homes] is putting in 38 homes in the first phase, and he's already sold quite a few of them."
An existing water line will serve those first 38 homes, Mr. Richey said, but phases two through six require the new water line city officials promise to install within the next few weeks.
Just in time, too, said Mr. Richey, who's negotiating with another builder for 50 lots in Northview Village and expects to see at least 40 more homes under construction within a year.
Except for a trailer showroom and one fast-rising house, Northview Village is empty now, oblongs of open land marked by stakes and flapping scraps of tattered plastic.
But the neighborhood's pioneers could be moving into brand-new houses in a couple of months, Mr. Richey said. By year's end, dozens of homes will dot Northview Village.
When residents sample that northern view, they'll see I-30 below them, the busy, buzzing artery that links Fate with Rockwall and Mesquite and rolls all the way down to Dallas, 28 miles away.
On the face of it, fate appears a neutral word. But in the history of this little town, hard luck seems to have overwhelmed the good.
Fate gained its name in 1880, not for destiny but in honor of the man who sought the first post office here: William Lafayette "Fate" Brown. He favored the name Brown Springs, but that was taken. His wife suggested his nickname instead, an abbreviation of Lafayette.
Fate was just 7 years old when residents decided to move the whole town a mile and a half south to a prime spot near the Missouri-Kansas-Texas Railroad. And for a while, the location paid off.
In 1900, 500 people lived in Fate, and businesses included a livery, a cotton gin and a dry-goods store. Fate had its own dentist, three doctors and a school.
But on New Year's Eve in 1906, fire wiped out the south part of town. Four years later, another fire engulfed the north end. Then in 1933, as a Baptist preacher thundered on about the wrath of God, a tornado lit into Fate, ripping a corner off the school, flattening the cotton warehouse and blacksmith shop, even shoving the Baptist church off its foundation.
Subsequent difficulties haven't been quite so spectacular. But changing times and economic troubles conspired to drive many young residents from Fate. Even the inevitable growth awaiting a place perched astride an interstate took its sweet time in arriving.
The first hint of a boom came 30 years ago when Centex Development Co. of Dallas assembled 2,000 acres of land around Fate and unveiled plans to transform the town. But gasoline prices and borrowing rates exploded first, and for years the folks in Fate were left to wonder what might have been.
In the '80s, developers dusted off the plans and took another look – until economic decline and the savings-and-loan scandals flattened the construction business in North Texas.
In the meantime, the city's few employers closed and moved away.
Finally, development splashed across Lake Ray Hubbard into Rockwall and Heath. And just beyond Rockwall, Fate waits.
Developer Dan Tomlin watched growth ripple to the edge of the lake, and then beyond.
"We looked around and you could see there was a diminishing supply of lots in Garland and Rowlett, and the price of homes was going up," he said. "That forces development farther out."
So almost three years ago, Mr. Tomlin and his company, Land Advisors Inc., found 1,500 acres along Highway 66 on the north side of Fate, across town from the four developments planned or under way in the area south of I-30.
Planners are still drawing Mr. Tomlin's development, called Woodcreek. But just the raw numbers describe changes that will remake Fate.
Mr. Tomlin and his son, Dan Tomlin III, talk about building 4,500 homes on the land and, in the process, adding 10,000 people to the town's population.
"It's going to be the biggest part of town, that's for sure," the elder Mr. Tomlin said.
Other developers have noticed Fate's attractions, too.
"You wouldn't believe all the phone calls we get," Mr. Boren said. "There's been a lot of interest around here."
No more status quo
Some people would prefer that Fate remain exactly as it is. But that won't happen, Mr. Boren said.
"I was raised in this town. My parents and grandparents lived here. But I'm aware that growth is coming," Mr. Boren said. "The question now is how to control it."
That's a question other towns have faced. And Fate, which barely raised a blip in the North Texas real-estate market even a few years ago, is beginning to learn what this rush of growth will mean.
Gone forever are the days when members of the City Council personally handled repairs around town. Council member Steve Skipworth remembers the day he donned a scuba tank and dangled in a hole – with other officials holding him by the legs – so he could repair a water main.
And now, if someone stops by City Hall during normal business hours, the place is open.
"A few years ago, the city secretary worked a half-day, three days a week," Mr. Boren said. "Now she's there all day, five days a week."
Fate recently bought its first piece of road equipment. And in December, the city added a fourth employee: Mr. Boren, administrator, who just left his old job with a defense contractor on Friday.
Among his first chores will be redrawing Fate's zoning maps to accommodate the projects already lining up.
"No one really knows how to deal with this kind of growth," Mr. Boren said. "We learn from experience."
So he'll be calling officials from such places as Frisco, the current Collin County boomtown, for help.
"We're going to sit down and eat lunch and become best friends," Mr. Boren said.
Beyond that, Mr. Boren and other officials look around their little town and wonder what it will look like in five years. As much as they'd like it to remain small and close-knit, that could be impossible, no matter how well they plan.
"The good thing is we've all got the passion to do it right," Mr. Boren said. "My granddad was born in Fate. He served on the City Council for 20 years. I want my kids raised in this town.
"They might not be able to ride their bikes everywhere anymore, but we all want this done as well as we can do it." |
