Mansfield (Texas) 6.24

Mansfield is a suburban city located mostly in Tarrant county, with small parts in Ellis and Johnson counties in the U.S. state of Texas. It is part of the Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex area. Its location is almost equidistant to Dallas, Fort Worth, and Arlington. As of the 2010 census, the population was 56,368, up from 28,031 in 2000. The estimated population in 2014 was 62,246.CNN/Money Magazine ranked Mansfield at #17 in 2014 in its annual "Best Places To Live" list. Mansfield has been in that list in the recent past: in 2007, 2009, and 2012, ranking it 83rd, 24th, and 30th, respectively. It is currently the 15th most affluent location in all of Texas.HistoryThe first wave of European settlers arrived in the rolling Cross Timbers country of north central Texas in the 1840s. Primarily of Scotch-Irish origins, these pioneer farmers came for the most part from southern states, following the frontier as it shifted west of the Mississippi. They entered an area where Native Americans had been living for thousands of years. The Comanche posed a serious threat to the settlers, and in 1849, the U.S. Army established Fort Worth to protect the farms along the sparsely populated frontier.