Understand
The city was founded in 1875 and is named after Lee's Arlington House of present-day Arlington County, Virginia. After the arrival of the railroad in 1876, Arlington grew as a cotton-ginning and farming center, and incorporated in 1884. The city could boast of water, electricity, natural gas, and telephone services by 1910, along with a public school system. By 1925 the population was estimated at 3,031, and it grew to over four thousand before World War II.
Large-scale industrialization began in 1954 with the arrival of a General Motors assembly plant. Automotive and aerospace development gave the city one of the nation's greatest population growth rates between 1950 and 1990. Arlington became one of the "boomburgs," the extremely fast-growing suburbs of the post-World War II era. U.S. Census Bureau population figures for the city tell the story: 7,692 1950, 90,229 1970, 261,721 1990, and 359,467 2004 estimate. DFW Airport opened in 1974 which also contributed to unparalleled growth in the region.
