Editing Lancaster, Texas (section)

=== Founding of Lancaster ===
The founder of Lancaster was "A" Bledsoe (Some sources list his name as Abram Bledsoe.<ref>{{cite web | url = http://www.therestorationmovement.com/bledsoe.htm | title = Captain Abram Bledsoe | publisher = The Restoration Movement | access-date = 2014-02-12}}</ref> or Albert A. Bledsoe<ref>{{cite web | url = https://tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/fbl19 | title = Bledsoe, Albert A. | publisher = [[The Handbook of Texas]] online | access-date = 2014-02-12}}</ref>). He was born in [[Lancaster, Kentucky]], in 1801. According to family lore, when his father Moses first looked at his newborn son, he is said to have remarked, "he looks like a Bledsoe." Thus his name, A Bledsoe, is unmarked by a period.<ref name="Historic District Study"/>

Bledsoe surveyed and staked off the original town of Lancaster in 1852.<ref name="Lancaster Genealogical Society">{{cite web | url = http://lancastergenealogy.wikispaces.com/Lancaster+History | title = History of Lancaster, Texas | publisher = Lancaster Genealogical Society | access-date = 2014-02-17}}</ref> He purchased 430 acres of land from the widow of Roderick Rawlins, and modeled it after his Kentucky hometown. The layout featured a town square with streets entering from the center of each side rather than from the corners. Bledsoe began selling lots at a public auction in 1853, reportedly giving as many as two-thirds of them to settlers from the nearby Pleasant Run community.<ref name="Images of America"/> The official plat of the town of Lancaster was not filed with Dallas County until 1857. Bledsoe later served as Dallas County judge and [[Texas Comptroller of Public Accounts|state comptroller]]. He died in 1882.

In 1860, a post office was established in Lancaster.<ref name="Texas Handbook">{{cite web | url = https://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/hel05 | title = Lancaster, Texas (Dallas County) | publisher = [[The Handbook of Texas]] online | access-date = 2014-02-17}}</ref>