Lancaster ( LANG-kis-tər) is a city in Dallas County, Texas, United States. Its population was 41,275 according to the 2020 census. Founded in 1852 as a frontier post, Lancaster is one of Dallas County’s primeval settlements. Today, it is a suburban community located in the Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex, about 15 mi (24 km) south of downtown Dallas.

Lancaster is allocation of the Best Southwest area, which includes Lancaster, Cedar Hill, DeSoto, and Duncanville.

In 1841, an feat of the Republic of Texas Congress authorized President Mirabeau Lamar to enter into a contract in the ventilate of William S. Peters and 19 contacts to promote concurrence in North Texas, and paid the company with pardon land in squabble for recruiting further settlers. Around 600 families established in what became known as Peters Colony from 1841 through 1844. The Peters’ group advertised heavily in Kentucky, Illinois, Missouri, and Tennessee, so many of the very old settlers were from those states. The first outfit to correspond in the Lancaster Place was Roderick Rawlins and his associates from Greene County, Illinois. They left for Texas in September 1844. Rawlins and two of his sons-in-law came ahead to select the general Place where they would settle. They chose an uninhabited area south of Dallas along the north bank of Ten Mile Creek as the site of their further settlement. In December 1844, the three men went back up to Lamar County close the Red River to bring the perch of their wagon train. All of the settlers had arrived by January 2, 1845, and they formed a community known as Hardscrabble. It consisted of two rows of log cabins gone a street running north and south. In total, 30 men, women, and kids lived in Hardscrabble.

Several miles north of Hardscrabble, a second community called Pleasant Run was acknowledged in 1846 by Polly Rawlins, one of Roderick’s daughters, and her husband Madison Moultrie “M.M.” Miller. Together, the Millers built a two-room structure, with one room used as a general stock and the supplementary for living. By 1848, the structure had grown to 15 rooms, a separate store, and a warehouse. A make known office was time-honored with biweekly mail delivery and Miller as postmaster. By 1850, he had laid out a town and sold lots, but never filed a plat of the community afterward Dallas County. At its peak, Pleasant Run boasted a stage stop, school, and steam-powered grist mill in supplement to Miller’s store. Accelerated by the death of M.M. Miller in 1860, Pleasant Run declined. Shortly after the Rawlins’ settlers unaided the Hardscrabble settlement, Lancaster became the dominant community in the area.