Justin lies in the rich, fertile, softly rolling prairie land of North Central Texas at the confluence of Denton, Oliver, and Trail Creeks. Native American tribes flourished there for many years. In 1841, John B. Denton was killed near Fort Worth in the Village Creek battle and buried in an unmarked grave at the juncture of Denton and Oliver Creeks; twenty years later his remains were moved to Bolivar, and in 1901 he was reinterred on the grounds of the county courthouse. The same creek juncture was the site of an 1848 Icarian settlement of French socialist immigrants who were allocated thousands of acres by the Peters Colony, but strife with Peters and harsh conditions led to its abandonment within two years. In the mid-1800s, as settlers arrived from Missouri and other states, Texas Rangers posted at Hickory Station provided some protection that helped them establish ranching and farming, with wheat, corn, and cotton growing easily in the rich soil. Justin became an important stop on the Gulf, Colorado & Santa Fe Railway, and one of the men responsible for routing the railroad through the town was chief construction engineer Walter Justin Sherman, for whom the town was eventually named. Businesses soon opened and thrived, and by 1914 the town had four elevators, two cotton gins, a flour mill, and more than twenty other businesses. The Justin State Bank has remained a locally owned, managed, and operated financial institution since opening in 1904. Justin incorporated in 1946 and has continued to grow while offering a historical perspective and modern quality of life to new generations of settlers.