Please stay tuned to the end of the episode to hear a trailer from one of our favorite

podcasts, The Incredibly Narrated Nowhere Dispatch. The Nowhere Dispatch.

The Nowhere Dispatch features all sorts of eerie Texas tales and strange happenings, from true crime

to unexplained events, to gun-slinger's and scarcely known history.

I can't stress enough how good the nowhere dispatch is.

You're not doing yourself any favors if you're not listening.

Now on to the episode.

The Gone Coal Podcast may contain violent or graphic subject matter.

Listener discretion is advised. Grand Prairie Texas is just to the east of Arlington between Dallas and Fort Worth,

named Deckman in 1863, after Alexander McRae Deckman. Half of the prairie

acreage was traded to TMP Railroad in 1867, a move deckman made to ensure that the company would build a railroad line through the town of his namesake.

After the railroad was built, a U.S. post office was established in 1877 and routes were planted for the town's name change to come.

The U.S. Postal Service, it seems, made a little mistake when naming their new facility.

Instead of Deckman with an H, they officially named the office, Deckman with a K, a mistake largely considered due to bad handwriting.

Further confusion arose as TMP Railroad designated the name Grand Prairie to their lines that ran between Dallas and Fort Worth,

a name given to the route as a result of maps that had called the area that, drawn up in the 1850s.

Mail delivery and government business suffered as a result of all these inconsistencies

in the name, and inevitably, the Postal Service changed the name of their office there to Grand Prairie.

The town was eventually and officially incorporated as a city in 1909, called of course Grand Prairie.

In the early 20th century, a Vot aircraft facility provided residents employment. Aircraft and defense manufacturers continued to drive much of the city's economy.

Toward the end of the mid 20th century, Grand Prairie would become famous, at least to locals of Fort Worth. the for an establishment that would capture the imagination and demand the awe of children and adults alike.

Originally located in Dallas's Fair Park, the southwestern historical Wax Museum opened in Grand Prairie in 1972.

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