From the mid 1800's until Colleyville's incorporation in 1956, a number of crossroads villages existed in this area, including Bransford. Bransford and its depot were created after the Commerce to Ft. Worth branch of the St. Louis, Arkansas and Texas Railway, known as the Cotton Belt, opened in 1888, with the depot standing at this site on the north side of the tracks. The railroad transformed the pre-Colleyville area by providing its first economical, reliable transportation for people and goods. Alexander Franklin White, who was a young boy living nearby when the line opened on April 14, 1888, later recalled that about one mile of track was laid each day, with Irishmen laying crossties and Blacks laying rails, and that crowds celebrated the first train's arrival as children along the route received chocolate bars thrown from the train. Local producers could ship goods by rail, and merchants could bring in new merchandise, including items Philip White recalled his father had never seen before the railroad's arrival, such as salt mackerel and strawberries. Prominent landowner Elihu Newton recognized the importance of a depot and deeded land to the railway in 1889 in exchange for a flag station and passenger platform at Bransford. To fulfill that agreement, the railroad placed a small railroad car body on the site to serve as the Bransford Flag Stop Depot, where trains stopped only for freight, passengers to deliver, or people waiting to board, sometimes requiring passengers to flag the train. U.S. Mail was delivered there through the Bransford Post Office until April 30, 1913, when mail service moved to Smithfield; when a train was not expected to stop, an outgoing mailbag was hung on a pole beside the tracks and collected by hook from the moving train. Harry Lee Kyle Reynolds later remembered hurrying to Bransford after church as a boy to pick up the newspaper and see who got off the train. Improvements to the wagon paths that had brought settlers into the area, along with the rising popularity of the automobile, eventually brought about the depot's decline.