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is a town in Denton County, Texas, United States. Copper Canyon was founded in April 1973. Residents decided to incorporate the town in an effort to preserve the rural atmosphere of the community. The first mayor was Robert Woodin. Council meetings were held in homes until 1978, when several residents built the current town hall at 400 Woodland Drive. The developer of the Woodlands Addition donated the land. The population was 1,216 at the 2000 census. The town's area is 4.25 square miles.
Copper Canyon is adjacent to the master-planned Lantana residential development, which is currently not incorporated. The population of Lantana is 6,000 as of May 2008.
The first white settlement in the area that would become Copper Canyon occurred in the 1840s. One of the more prominent settler families was that of Elisha and Mary Chinn, who came to Texas from their original home in North Carolina in 1852. They helped establish the first church in the area, a log-cabin chapel which eventually became known as the Chinn's Chapel Methodist Church. The church is still active on what is now known as Chinn Chapel Road.
The town gradually grew with cattle ranching as the mainstay of the local economy. The railroad came to the area in 1881, and the first public school was constructed in 1884. The town apparently got its name from "Copperhead Canyon," a part of the area formerly known for poisonous snakes. Population, never large, generally stagnated or declined in the first half of the twentieth century. After World War II the area's rural charm slowly began to attract residents from the more crowded parts of the Dallas/Fort Worth Metroplex.
The town was formally incorporated in 1973. Although still rather sparsely populated, the town has grown as part of the general development of areas north of the Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport. Census Bureau figures tell the story: 465 (1980), 978 (1990), 1,389 (2006 estimate). Traditional ranches are still found in the area, but Copper Canyon has become primarily a bedroom community with little commercial development.