BIOGRAPHY - POINDEXTER FAMILY HISTORY

Submitted by Sara Hemp
From the Centenial Edition of the Grand Prairie News Texan (1863-1963):
Poindexter Family History
Originally from Illinois, J. F. and Wilma L. Poindexter were among the first of the family to settle in the Grand Prairie area. They bought a section of land south of town to farm. Among their children were J. B. Poindexter born in 1849 who was the patriarch of the present Poindexter family. J. B. married Elmenor Upchurch in 1875. The Upchurch family had come to Grand Prairie from Tennessee in 1847 so both were natives. After their marriage, the young Poindexter's lived in a log cabin on the family land (now owned by the Dallas Power and Light Co, except for 100 acres retained by family members). He opened the town's first blacksmith shop.
The couple had seven children including W. A. Poindexter, 134 N. St. and R. L. Poindexter, 902 SE 11th St. W. A. married Alpha Lake Gailey in 1915. J. B., who died in 1914, commented that at one time, land was plentiful and oxen hard to come by. He could have bought all the land around the Dallas courthouse for a yoke of oxen, but when the offer came, like everyone else he had plenty of land and only two oxen. Mrs. Grace Huffstetter, in an interview in 1946, stated that her father, John Eathen Rust, settled three miles south of Grand Prairie in 1876. Her nearest neighbors were the Poindexters (Vail, The History of Grand Prairie 1846 to 1941, Appendix 38).