Biohazard and Crime Scene Remediation in DeSoto, TX

DeSoto is a city in southwest Dallas County, Texas, first settled in 1847, which makes it one of the oldest communities in North Texas.

DeSoto was named not for the Spanish explorer but for Dr. Thomas Hernando DeSoto Stewart, a physician devoted to the community, when a post office was established in 1881.

DeSoto incorporated on March 3, 1949, after an election in which 50 of 52 voters favored incorporation, and its first census in 1950 counted just 298 people and eight businesses.

DeSoto has grown into a city of 56,145 people at the 2020 census, with about 20,693 households, an average of 2.69 people per household and a 69.6% owner-occupied housing rate.

DeSoto anchors the Best Southwest group of Dallas suburbs alongside Cedar Hill, Duncanville and Lancaster, and it is the largest city in southwest Dallas County.

DeSoto's population exploded after 1950, jumping from 298 people to 1,969 by 1960, 15,538 by 1980 and more than 30,000 by 1990 as the Dallas-Fort Worth metroplex spread south.

The city underwent a major demographic shift in the 1990s and 2000s, going from about 76% White in the 1990 census to a majority African American city by 2000, and it is known as one of the most diverse suburbs in the Dallas area.

Despite decades of suburban growth, DeSoto covers about 21 square miles of southwest Dallas County and retains a residential, neighborhood feel with an extensive parks and trails system.

DeSoto's earliest community in 1885 consisted of only about 120 people, a cotton gin and a general store, and it shrank to fewer than 50 residents before its 20th-century rebirth.