DALLAS _ After a gunman attacked a church Sunday in White Settlement, national attention turned to the small town west of Fort Worth with the strange name.
The name has created controversy as racial sensitivities have led to a reconsideration of public places, including schools and parks. But residents of White Settlement have long said the name should stick.
The name was given to the town to differentiate it from a number of American Indian settlements in the area during the mid-1800s, according to the White Settlement Historical Museum.
In 2005, a proposed city charter amendment would have changed the name to West Settlement. City and business leaders feared that the name's racial connotations was keeping development and investment away, but the proposal failed with only 8% of votes from residents.
In April 2018, the city's Texas Civil War Museum was floated as a possible home for Dallas' statue of Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee.
That museum skews "southward" in its depiction of the war and slavery, according to Dallas Morning News columnist Robert Wilonsky.
According to the U.S. Census Bureau, 81% of the White Settlement's 17,135 residents are white.
