The tiny settlement of Cedar Hill was established in 1846. Families set their roots around a special plot of land donated by Abraham Hart, one of the first settlers in the area and recipient of land through the 1841 Peter's Colony land grant.
William C. Hart donated the land for the town square in 1847, although the plat was not laid out until 1871 when J. M. Williams of the Santa Fe Railroad put pen to paper and officially filed the plat with Dallas County. For over 150 years the streets around the town square have served as a hub of local government, business and social activity including the annual fall festival known as Country Day on the Hill.
Referred to as Old Town, Historic Downtown or simply Downtown, the area is bound roughly on the north by West Belt Line Road, east by Highway 67, to the south along Cooper at Broad and west approximately three blocks past the railroad tracks toward Joe Pool Lake.