‘We just love Decatur’: Can this small city keep its charm as Wise County grows? / Texas EDC

On a recent Tuesday afternoon, the parking spots in Decatur’s downtown square are filled with pickups and an occasional horse trailer. Some are visitors who drove in to shop for antiques or boutique clothing. Others are high school couples on dates at Sweetie Pie’s Ribeyes for a $10 lunch special, or lawyers dashing in and out of their offices beside the ornate Wise County courthouse, built in 1896. Cutting through it all is the soundtrack of nearby construction.

You can’t get much farther from the urban bustle of the Metroplex than a city like Decatur, some 40 miles northwest of Fort Worth. Drive a few blocks down East Main Street from the square and you’ll hit cow pastures.

But there’s no escaping the growth that is accelerating at breakneck speed into rural counties that surround Tarrant and Dallas. Wise County is one of the fastest growing corners of North Texas, with a population that has leaped more than 18 percent since 2020. It isn’t slowing down; thousands more new homes are in the development pipeline across the vast prairie that flanks U.S. 287.

The growth presents a head-spinning array of challenges for Wise County and its small cities like Decatur, Rhome and New Fairview — not least of which is how to meet demand for water supplies. But perhaps one of the biggest challenges on the minds of folks here — whether they welcome the development or shake their heads at it — is how to preserve everything they love about Decatur in the face of growth.