In 1841 the Republic of Texas chartered the Peters Colony land company to settle North Texas. In 1844 John W. King and his wife settled on the east side of the prairie where the city now stands, while Baptist settlers from Platte County, Missouri, settled the west side, among them John and James Holford, who named it Holford's Prairie; to the south, Presbyterians founded a church they called Flower Mound. Amid the confusion over land titles after the Hedgcoxe War, Basdeal Lewis bought Holford's Prairie in 1853 and renamed it for himself.
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In 1845 the Fox family, who held about a dozen enslaved people, buried an enslaved child named Melinda on their farm, which became the town's cemetery for Black residents. The Fox-Hembry Cemetery still exists and was restored by local residents and businesses in 2011. During Reconstruction, Lewisville got Denton County's first cotton gin, built in 1867 and able to produce three bales a day.
The Dallas and Wichita Railroad, later the Missouri-Kansas-Texas, was chartered on condition that 20 miles of track be running by July 1, 1875, and Lewisville paid the company $15,000 to come to town, with $5,000 more promised on completion. The company finished track to just south of town on the morning of the deadline, and full-time service began in 1881. A state law of April 30, 1874, banned alcohol within two miles of the town, though many residents ignored it.
Sources
Wikipedia: Lewisville, Texas