DL Caldwell is still the first one through the door every morning at the pawn shop he owns in Princeton, Texas. At 82 years old, he knows a little bit about what people want.
When Caldwell’s family settled in the city in the 1960s, fewer than 1,000 people lived there. While farmers saw fertile ground to grow their cantaloupes and onions, Caldwell saw an opportunity to buy land and open businesses.
“I just believed it. I really believed it would grow, and I figured that the cheaper type, inexpensive home would come to Princeton,” Caldwell said.
But not even Caldwell saw what was coming: Rows of homes now fill Princeton’s old farm fields, just 30 miles north of Dallas.
In 2020, there were 17,000 people living in Princeton. It grew to 28,000 in two years and then to 37,000 last year, when it topped the Census Bureau’s list of the fastest-growing cities in the country.
Krystal Alexander, a first-time homeowner, is one of thousands who just moved in.
“It was something that I knew I could afford, and the homes were actually really nice,” Alexander said.
Princeton was not on Alexander’s list of places to live, but in a county where the median sale price for a home is nearly $475,000, homes in Princeton sell for just about $300,000.
But the explosive growth has also come with growing pains. Homes went up so fast, Princeton had to put a temporary stop to the building just to make sure there were enough sewer lines, water lines and roads for the thousands of people moving in.
“We’re still about five years, probably, behind. We’re having to literally figure out everything and redo everything over because the measurements, everything we had in place, cannot handle where we are now,” Princeton Mayor Eugene Escobar Jr. said.
Another 13,000 home units are already approved and waiting to be built. Meanwhile, new roads are being built to ease congestion. The once tiny town of Princeton is expected to grow to 100,000 people within the next five years.
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