The community was established in 1934 as a subsistence homestead project during the Great Depression under the authority of the
National Industrial Recovery Act as part of the
Subsistence Homesteads Division. The purpose of the homestead program was to help families attain a better standard of living through a combination of part-time industrial employment and subsistence agriculture. Dalworthington Gardens was one of five such projects located in Texas. Its inclusion in the group was at the suggestion of
Eleanor Roosevelt, who happened upon the area while visiting the Fort Worth family of the woman to whom the son of her and President Roosevelt,
Elliot, had become engaged. Of the five sites selected for this program, Dalworthington "colony" as it was originally called, is the only one still in existence today. Since it has been in constant operation from its inception, it maintains its original zoning regulations, which allow subsistence farming and livestock on any lots over one-half acre that remain owned and occupied from the time the zoning was first put into effect. Thus, one can see small, older frame homes with livestock on their lot, near and even adjacent to large modern homes with values in excess of $1 million. The community's name is a
portmanteau of the names of the three anchor cities of the
metroplex:
Dallas,
Fort Worth, and
Arlington. ==Geography==