Organized in the 1870s, this suburban Dallas city was first called Nickleville. In 1886 the Gulf, Colorado and Santa Fe Railroad laid track through the area; the railroad named the location Wylie for W. D. Wylie who was a railroad agent at that time. The city was incorporated in 1887. The first post office in Wylie was opened the same year. Two years later, the Saint Louis Southwestern Railroad came to town. These two railroads serving the rich agricultural area spawned the virtual doubling of Wylie's population during the last decade of the 19th century. During the 1930s and 1940s Wylie claimed unto itself the title of "onion capital of the world."