New book features Mansfield history

By Amanda Rogers

Mansfield Record

The Mansfield Historical Society has gotten lit – literary, that is.

The nonprofit group has put together a second book featuring the history of Mansfield, Texas, featuring more than 120 historical photos. Printed by Arcadia Publishing, the historical society compiled dozens of well-known – and some obscure - photos to tell the city’s story in “Images of America: Mansfield.”

Jessica Baber, manager of the Mansfield Historical Museum, worked with historical society members Marty Thomas, Linda Leddy and Karen Leach for more than 18 months to select the featured photos, which range from an 1859 photo of the Man and Feild Mill at what is now Broad and Main streets to a recent one of the Mansfield ISD Hall of Honor.

“We tried not to make it dry,” Leddy said. “We put in the cool stories. Some of the photos weren’t clear enough so we had to go back and find another photo.”

The book covers Mansfield’s 167-year history in 127 pages, with six chapters: Early Days, Home Life, Education, Businesses, Government and Civics and Entertainment.

The four women started playing detective to dig deep into the town’s story.

Some of the best photos the historical society has collected have no information, Leach said.

“We drove around town, taking photo and doing detective work,” Leddy said. “We tried to cover all the demographics of Mansfield. We had a dickens of a time finding the first Spanish family.”

Local attorney Raymond Meeks stepped in and helped track down the Longoria family, Baber said, and the history sleuths showed up at their door to borrow photos for the book.

Their hard work paid off.

“We had a young man come in who had seen something on Facebook about the Longorias,” Thomas said. “He said ‘That’s my family!’ He was so excited.”

The historical society members said they were sad that they could not include everything they wanted in the book, but made sure to cover important aspects, even if they didn’t put Mansfield in a bright light, like the desegregation attempts in 1956 that made worldwide news.

“We didn’t just include the stuff that was bright and shiny,” Baber said.

The paperback book is the second published by the nonprofit historical society. In 1996, the group published a 400-page “The History of Mansfield, Texas,” a massive hardback book that has been updated and reprinted several times.

Arcadia Publishing approached the historical society in 2024 about compiling the photos and information for the “Images of America: Mansfield.”  Arcadia has printed many books about cities in Texas, using a standard format.

Both books are for sale at the Mansfield Historical Society, 102 N. Main St., and on the historical society’s website, mansfieldtxhistoricalsociety.org. “Images of America: Mansfield” retails for $24.99, while “The History of Mansfield, Texas” is $60.