If you've ever been around White Rock Skate, taken a dip in the K.C. Pool, or dropped off a car for repairs at Northlake Automotive, you've been directly in the bull’s eye of Dallas history. The story of Little Egypt, named by founding families to commemorate their own journey out of bondage, might have been lost forever if not for Dr. Tim Sullivan and Dr. Clive Siegle, two Richland College professors who put their students to work uncovering the settlement in 2015. Another one in Dallas that's been nearly forgotten, Little Egypt, is getting a renewed look thanks to Richland College.
KERA’s great reporter Bill Zeeble takes a look at how a couple of professors at Richland College and their students are rescuing the history of the rural community founded by former slaves Hanna and Jeff Hill, named for the Egypt Chapel Baptist Church that was in the area.
White Rock Lake Park, near where Little Egypt once stood.
The rural community was settled in the 1880s. Little Egypt existed from the 1880s until about 50 years ago. The freedman’s town called Little Egypt dates back to the years immediately following the Civil War. A group of former slaves named Jeff (sometimes called John) Hill, Ephriham Floyd and their wives Hannah Hill and Amanda Floyd either bought from or were deeded land by an unnamed former slave holder just north of what would later become White Rock Lake. It was one of several freedman’s towns that grew up in Dallas County after the war ended.
Jeff Hill was born in 1839 in Kansas City, Missouri and was married to Hannah Griffin Hill, born in 1840, also in Kansas City, Missouri. The couple had about thirteen children born between the late 1850s and around 1889. In the 1870 census, Jeff’s occupation was listed as farmer. He is also said to have operated a community store in Egypt. Jeff died in 1925 at the age of 86 and is buried in McCree Cemetery.
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Life in Little Egypt
Some accounts refer to the name simply as Egypt, referencing the Bible narrative of how the children of Israel were held as slaves to the Egyptians until God led them out of bondage from Egypt. It was a rural community initially since it was in the middle of farmland. The reminiscences of a Dallas city resident who visited his grandparents’ farm in the 1930s paints a picture of farm life in this vicinity as it existed during this decade.
Gloria McCoy grew up in Little Egypt. A taste:“We had electricity but we had no running water,” Gloria McCoy says. “We didn’t have any indoor plumbing. We had the outhouse. And we had butane gas. And we did have a telephone.”This was the 1950s. The McCoy house actually had Little Egypt’s only telephone, says Gloria’s older sister, Joann.
“People in the neighborhood did not have phones but a lot of them got their calls there [her house], and we would run up the road and tell them, 'So-and-so! Telephone’s for you!'” Joann says. That road she ran on was all dirt - Little Egypt never got paved. That didn’t bother the sisters.“We did not feel like we were poor,” Gloria and Joann both say, echoing each others’ comments. In the 1950s they grew up in LIttle Egypt and loved it, dirt roads, no running water, and all.
The Egypt Chapel Baptist Church
Although accommodations were sparse, with most houses being small structures, having no running water, electricity, gas or indoor plumbing/sewer services, it gave rise to a church, Egypt Chapel Baptist Church, said to be organized on April 10, 1880 by Dr. A. R. Griggs. One of the earliest known organizations established in Egypt was the Egypt Chapel Baptist Church.
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A church choir, highlighting the importance of religious institutions in African American communities.
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There was also a one room school house for grades one through six.(1) Children living in Egypt went to school at Alisson Booner, which went from first through eighth grade, and for upper grades they went to Booker T. There were no paved streets and for many years, there was one telephone line coming into the community.
McCree Cemetery and Little Egypt
Egypt is associated with the McCree Cemetery in that the cemetery is believed to date back to just after the Civil War. The land on which McCree Cemetery is located is part of the Harrison Hustead Survey No. H. McCree and Mahulda Bonner McCree acquired several acres from the Hustead Survey, including that portion that would become McCree Cemetery.
McCree Cemetery was established June 19, 1866, when Mahulda Bonner McCree granted 1.5 acres to William McCullough and James E. Jackson for a public graveyard. On June 25, 1896, J. E. Griffin sold one acre of land adjoining the east side of McCree Cemetery to three African-American individuals, Jeff Hill, George John and Monroe Parker for $25 for the purpose of creating a grave yard for the Egypt community. Less than a month after the Griffins conveyed land for an African American burial ground, they sold one and 5/8 acres to B. J. Prigmore for the same purpose.
McCree Cemetery was over 50 years old when a group of descendants formed the McCree Cemetery Association with the intent of preserving and maintaining the burial ground. Residents of Little Egypt were buried at McCree Cemetery, 9934 Audelia just south of Estate Lane, on the side reserved for decedents of color.
The planned addition that was enclosing McCree Cemetery was called Lake North Estates No. With Audelia and Egypt gone, McCree Cemetery was virtually the only physical reminder that either community once existed. Today, McCree Cemetery remains a historic feature of the community. While the cemetery is no longer active, descendants, the local community, and organizations such as Preservation Dallas want to ensure its future as a resting place for Dallas early pioneers and as a historic site for future generations. Lake Highlands neighbors still keep an eye on it, and Lake Highlands organizations and businesses are involved in its future.
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The Dissolution of Little Egypt
Egypt was bounded by Northwest Highway to the south, farmland owned by others to the north, Easton Road to the east and Ferndale (previously called Foree Road) to the west. It comprised about thirty-five acres of land and at its peak accommodated some two hundred families. Eventually, the Lake Highlands community grew up around and encircled Egypt.
About 200 residents remained in the community in 1962 when the residents voted to sell out to developers. Each homeowner received a minimum of $6,500 and the developers paid the moving costs. The church and many residents moved to the Cedar Crest section of Oak Cliff. Egypt Chapel Baptist Church still exists and is located where it moved to in Oak Cliff.
A map showing the location of Freedman's Towns in Dallas, including Little Egypt.
By 1962, fate had dealt the community a final hand. In one day, the fleet of 37 moving vans that descended on the rutted roads and aging homesteads of Little Egypt had loaded up the furnishings of its residents, and by the end of the day, the community stood deserted. Bulldozers followed shortly.
Rediscovering Little Egypt
With no running water or paved roads, the community left few tell-tale signs behind after the homes were bulldozed by developers. But students interested in anthropology, history and genealogy spent hours taking oral histories from families and digging for clues at the site. They hit a treasure trove in the empty lot next to East Lake Veterinary Hospital, where veterinarian Dr. “Summer after summer, students performed archeologic digs here in our backyard and found, apparently, some significant artifacts,” Fling told me.
Years worth of research was interrupted by the pandemic and slowed each semester as new crops of students were trained to join the team. Siegle and Sullivan say they are hoping to eventually store and display their findings at the African American Museum at Fair Park.
A permanent historical marker was unveiled Saturday outside the Park Department’s Paul Dyer Administration Complex, formerly known as the Muchert Army Reserve Center. “I feel like I’m walking on hallowed ground,” said Councilman Adam McGough. “History is something we have to know, and getting to know our ancestors who lived that history is incredibly important. Dozens of Little Egypt family descendants were on hand for the unveiling, including relatives of Jeff and Hanna Hill, enslaved persons who purchased the original plot of land in 1883 after being freed in 1865.
The plaque sits on the west side of Thurgood Lane just outside the actual boundaries of Little Egypt, but that’s strategic. “The rural settlement of Little Egypt began when former slave Jeff Hill bought a tract of approximately thirty acres of land across Thurgood Lane from this marker in 1883. By the 1920s, the Egypt Chapel Baptist Church and a one-room school had been added to a growing number of homesteads on the tract. Due to Little Egypt’s early establishment and distance from Dallas, for more than seventy years it retained many of its rural characteristics despite the growing encroachment of urban development. In 1962, however, the entire community collectively sold their property to developers.
“This is a historical site,” Dr. Siegle said. “It is one of many small rural communities that once dotted Texas and have eventually been swallowed up. But it also provides an excellent example of how these communities developed over time. It’s a case study in post-Civil War Black rural community evolution. History has always talked about great events and great men, but today’s historical focus is rich with studies that illuminate what life was like for regular folk as well.
“This honor is for Little Egypt, and it is well deserved,” McCoy said. “We are pleased that they (Dr. Siegle, Dr. Sullivan and Richland College students) took an interest in the community we were raised in.
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