According to the City of North Richland Hills website, a brief history states that the city came into being when W. S. Peters agreed to bring six hundred families to the area within three years as part of a land grant. The families began arriving in the summer of 1848. In 1849, Tarrant County was established and named after General Edward H. Tarrant. The community of Birdville (adjacent to what is now the southwestern boundary of North Richland Hills) became the first county seat. The area remained a rural farming and ranching community for more than a hundred years.
In 1952, Clarence Jones began subdividing his approximately 267-acre dairy farm into a suburban neighborhood in the area now known as Cummings Drive. In 1953, the North Richland Hills Civic League sought to have the area annexed by Richland Hills, but when the annexation was rejected, it voted to establish its own city. An election was held, and the 267 acres of the Jones farm, with a population of five hundred, officially became the city of North Richland Hills.
The streets in the first section of North Richland Hills were named after local families. The second section, added in 1954, was given names based on automobiles. The first section of the subdivision contained 188 homes, which could only be built of brick or masonry.
Although not many ghost stories originate from this area, one concerns a part of the city called Knob Hill and serves as a reminder that Tarrant County and the surrounding area once truly resembled the Wild West. According to legend, people at this location have reported seeing dark figures moving among the trees late at night at the top of the hill. Local residents also say they hear screams, usually early in the morning before sunrise. It has also been mentioned that a local outlaw named Sam Bass took two men to the top of the hill in 1870 and shot them both in the head. This could be true, as some people in the area have noticed men wearing old cowboy hats walking near their fences. Apparently, they are not real people but merely apparitions, because when anyone comes closer, no one is there.
