A city of northeast Texas west of Dallas. Built on the site of a military post established in the 1840s, it is a major industrial center and distribution point. Population: 447,619. a city in the northeast of the US state of Texas, near Dallas. It is a centre for farming, the oil industry, and the aircraft-building industry. City (pop., 2000: 534,694), northern Texas, U.S. It lies on the Trinity River and constitutes the western part of the Dallas-Fort Worth urban complex. Founded in 1849 as a military outpost against Comanche raids, it was a stopover point for cattle drives on the Chisholm Trail. It became a cattle-shipping boomtown after the railroad arrived in 1876. Oil finds brought the petroleum-refining industry in 1920, and in 1949 aircraft manufacturing began there, expanded now to include aerospace and electronic equipment. It is the seat of Texas Christian University (1873) and Texas Wesleyan University (1890), and its attractions include the Amon Carter Museum of Western Art