By Joy Donovan
Photos courtesy of Grapevine CVB
On a recent morning, Mayor William D. Tate sat in his cluttered office just off Grapevine’s Main Street. The office’s four walls served as a three-dimensional Scrapbook with family photos, hunting trophies and well-worn legal books surrounding his large desk.
After being mayor of his beloved hometown for 50 years — half a century — he has collected more than just a few memories.
“I like to say I enjoyed our community when it was a farming community, and I enjoy it now,” he says with a grin, sitting behind his cluttered desk, surrounded by mementos. First elected in 1973, Mayor Tate has been both a steady presence and hometown historian for Grapevine.
Now, after a lifetime of living there, the longtime mayor is as much a landmark as the railway that cuts through town. He was born in Grapevine when it was home to just a few hundred. The mayor fondly remembers Saturdays watching movies at the Palace Theatre on Main Street and walking home in the dark under the eye of the town’s night watchman. He played basketball at Grapevine High School, where he won the Mr. Grapevine High School title but lost the class presidency by two votes. Along the way, he earned degrees from North Texas State University, now UNT, and Southern Methodist University School of Law.
He’s watched his town grow from a quiet railroad stop into one of North Texas’ most profitable destinations. What began as a humble farming community is now a nationally recognized historic district lined with winetasting rooms, restaurants and boutiques in restored brick-fronted buildings. The city that stretches from Lake Grapevine to Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport has become a busy tourist draw while still holding onto its small-town appeal. Family, though, remains just as central to his life.
“My wife has worn my ring for 57 years,” he says with a smile.
He and his wife, Betty, now a retired teacher, reared five daughters, all of whom became teachers, and are the proud grandparents of 17 grandchildren. Memories of the family intertwine with Grapevine’s history. His father, Gordon Tate, also served as mayor, and made connections that allowed the current mayor the same privilege. He also chased crickets and grasshoppers on Main Street and bought ice cream sodas for a nickel.
Main Street became busier, and the mayor can pinpoint the exact shift in direction.
“The airport changed everything; it transformed us from a farming community to an international city,” he says. “Building of the lake made us a recreation center. Grapevine Mills Mall made us a retail center. All the hotels make us a hospitality center. They’ve all added to our future and our way of life.”
Now, festivals and parades fill the city calendar, making Grapevine the prosperous city it is today. Shaped by its mayor and ever-buzzing tourism bureau, the city expects 12 million visitors each year. Tate attends ribbon cuttings, grape stomps and celebrations as the city representative, while maintaining a hands-on approach to his law practice, located, of course, in his hometown.
Being active in the city is all his family has ever known. Daughter Sheri Tate Thompson, who is the fifth generation to live in the family home, remembers putting up campaign signs for her dad when she was four or five years old. “There is a job, and then there is a passion,” Thompson said of her father. “Being the mayor has definitely been a passion. When you follow something with a passion, there are no work hours.”
Even though civic duties demand his time, he’s known as a devoted father and grandfather. That same passion for leadership he employs as mayor, Tate put into fatherhood, his daughter says. He coached his girls’ soccer teams, took them hunting and allowed them to put pink rollers in his hair.
“I’m sure there were many times there were colored toenails under those loafers,” Thompson says.
Juggling his duties as mayor, his practice of law, and his love of family is something friends watch with a sense of awe.
“Mayor Tate is an individual who is very efficient with his time, and he utilizes it fully on his three primary interests: one, his family and faith, two, the citizens of Grapevine, and three, his law practice and title company,” says P.W. McCallum, executive director of the Grapevine Convention and Visitors Bureau. The two have worked alongside each other for years, watching the city’s dramatic transformation.
“Because he prioritizes his time so well, he’s able to be a part of every family event, whether for his children when they were growing up or as it is now, with his grandchildren, and it is always a shared experience with his wife, Betty.”
Daily, the mayor and his wife, along with their beloved dog in the back seat, drive the city streets. He wants to oversee the city, keeping a watchful eye on the progress of his hometown every day.
His hometown will honor Tate’s 50-year service beginning this May and continuing throughout the year. Golden jubilee celebrations will roll through 2026 and into May 2027. The parties began May 15 at Main Street Fest, followed by a gala tribute May 15, a public art dedication May 16 and a community picnic May 17 — the exact day Tate first took office a half century ago.
Tate was first elected mayor in 1973. After a stint as city council member and city attorney, he returned to the mayor’s seat in 1988 and never turned away. His fingerprints are on decades of committees, projects and civic milestones. He was inducted into the Grapevine High School Hall of Fame, recently received the Northeast Leadership Forum’s Distinguished Leadership Award, and will soon be welcomed into the Texas Trail of Fame with an inlaid bronze star at the Fort Worth Stockyards, joining the ranks of western icons.
He has decades of stories about Grapevine’s past. He released the first fish into Lake Grapevine in 1952 when his father was mayor. During his own tenure, he rode in the first plane to land in 1974 at DFW Airport, greeted presidents, boogied to the tunes of LeAnn Rimes at the 2006 opening of Gaylord Texan’s Glass Cactus nightclub and oversaw Grapevine’s 2009 legislative designation as the Christmas Capital of Texas.
“One of the things he has said is ‘you never know what’s waiting for you,’” Thompson said about her father. “He’s always had that optimistic outlook on things that he always thinks there’s something neat around the corner.”
Whether there’s another term in his future is up in the air. What’s definite is that Mayor Tate has enjoyed the honor of being Grapevine’s mayor.
“So, we’ve done what we can,” he says on a recent spring day. “We’ve restored old buildings and saved Main Street. What I’ve done to make a difference is to make our city a better place. People like living here.”
That makes the mayor smile again.