Mosier Valley is the oldest African American community in Tarrant County. It is located in Northeast Tarrant County just south of the Hurst, Bedford, Euless area on the north bank of the Trinity River. The site was settled in the 1870s by the Robert Johnson family and ten other families, most of them former slaves on the Mosier plantation. The community established the Oak Grove Baptist Church in 1874. The congregation changed its name to the St. John Missionary Baptist Church in 1911. A school was established in 1884. Many Mosier Valley families owned farms. Others were employed in some of the surrounding white communities. Some residents established stores and other businesses to serve the community. At its peak in the 1930s Mosier Valley was a vibrant community of some 300 people. The community had a rich social life centering structured the church, school and other social organizations. The community went into decline after the Second World War as the surrounding cities expanded, and younger residents moved away.
When the Heritage Room collections were established in 1975, part of its mission was to collect material relating to the history of African Americans in Tarrant County. Vada Johnson, a descendent of one of the original Mosier Valley Settlers and a former school teacher in Mosier valley, cooperated with Duane Gage in documenting the history of Mosier Valley. Lenora Rolla, an African American political activist and journalist from Fort Worth, was also involved in the effort. Rolla was also a co-founder of the Tarrant County Black Historical and Genealogical Society.
The Records of Mosier Valley are part of the Heritage Room Archival Collections and are the property of the Tarrant County College District.
The Records of Mosier Valley consist of photographs, monographs, family histories, oral histories, clipping files, biographical sketches, and miscellaneous genealogical records on the history of Mosier Valley from its founding in the 1870s to the 1970s. Most of this material was collected from 1975 to 1977. There are a few later additions. The collection is stored in 5 archival record boxes. Most of the documents and photographs are copies of originals. The Mosier Valley material was originally stored in several different sections of the Heritage Room collections. The photographs were scattered throughout the general photograph collection: images of people were filed with People; images of homes with Houses; and so on. At some point a decision was made to gather the Mosier Valley images into a single binder. The monographs, oral histories, family histories and other bound material were in several different sections the Heritage Room Local History Manuscript Collection. In 2010 the Heritage Room and its collections joined with the Department of Records Management to form the Department of Records Management and Archives. As part of a reorganization of the Heritage Room collections, it was decided that all of the information relating to Mosier Valley should be gathered into a single collection.
