History of Dallas, Texas
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Dallas Portal |
This article traces the history of Dallas, Texas (USA).
[edit] Territorial Period (1500s-1838)
Caddo Native Americans inhabited the Dallas area before it was claimed, along with the rest of Texas, as a part of the Spanish Viceroyalty of New Spain in the 1500s. The area was also claimed by the French, but in 1819 the Adams-Onís Treaty officially placed Dallas well within Spanish territory by making the Red River the northern boundary of New Spain.[1]
Another European who probably visited the Dallas area was Athanase de Mezieres in 1778. De Mezieres, a Frenchman then in the service of the King of Spain, probably crossed the West Fork of the Trinity River near present-day Fort Worth, having followed the western edge of the Eastern Cross Timbers from the Tawakoni Village on the Brazos River near present Waco. He then proceeded north to the Red River.[1] He wrote:
| “ | It is worthy to note that from the Brazos River on which the Tuacanas are established, and until one reaches the river which bathes the village of the Taovayzes (Red River), one sees on the right a forest that the natives appropriately call the Grand Forest. ...it is very dense, but not very wide. It seems to be there as a guide to even the most inexperienced, and to give refuge in this dangerous region to those who, few in number and lacking in courage, wish to go from one village to another. -De Mezieres[1] | ” |
De Mezieres' biographer, Bolton, was convinced de Mezieres was describing the Eastern Cross Timbers and the route would have him crossing the West Fork of the Trinity River between the present Fort Worth and Arlington.[1]
Present-day Dallas remained under Spanish rule until 1821, when Mexico declared independence from Spain, and the area became part of the Mexican state of Coahuila y Tejas. The Republic of Texas broke off from Mexico in 1836 and remained an independent country for nearly 10 years.[2]
[edit] Settlement (1839-1855)
John Neely Bryan, looking for a good trading post to serve Native Americans and settlers, first surveyed the Dallas area in 1839.[3] Bryan, who shared Sam Houston's insight into the wisdom of Native American customs, must have realized that Caddo trails he came across intersected at one of the few natural fords for hundreds of kilometers along the wide Trinity floodplain. Bryan also knew that the planned Preston Trail was to run near the ford — the north-south route and the ford at Bryan's Bluff became more important when the United States annexed Texas in 1845.
After Bryan surveyed the area, he returned home to Arkansas. While there, a treaty was signed removing all Native Americans from Northern Texas. When he returned in November 1841, half of his customers, the Native Americans, were gone. He decided that instead of creating a trading post, he would create a permanent settlement, which he founded in November 1841. In 1844 J. P. Dumas surveyed and laid out a 0.5 square miles (1.3 km²) section of blocks and streets near present downtown, which was named "Dallas."
In 1855, a group of European artists and musicians set up a utopian community west of Dallas called "La Reunion". When that venture collapsed in 1857 many of the artists moved to Dallas, where they established the base of a culture which, a century and a half later, is reflected in creative neighborhoods like Deep Ellum (east of downtown), and lower Greenville Avenue.
[edit] Early Existence (1856-1873)
On 2 February 1856, Dallas was granted a town charter during the Regular session of the Sixth Texas Legislature. Dr. Samuel Pryor was elected the first mayor along with a constable, a treasurer-recorder, and six aldermen.[4] By 1860, the town's population reached 678, including 97 African Americans as well as Belgians, French, Germans, and Swiss. By that year, the railroad was approaching from the south, and several stage lines were already passing through the city.[3]
In July 1860, a fire broke out in the square, destroying most of the buildings in the business district of Dallas. Many residents assumed that slaves were behind it and two abolitionists were run out of town. Three African-American slaves were hung, and all other slaves in Dallas were ordered to be whipped. In 1861, Dallas County voted 741-237 in favor of secession. On 8 June of that year, a state of war was declared, and citizens were very supportive of the effort. The town was very far from actual battle, and received very little if any damage from the war.
The Reconstruction period of the war brought many challenges for Dallas. On 19 June 1865 (Juneteenth), Texan slaves were liberated. Many African Americans came to Dallas after the war because the city was still prosperous compared to many other Southern cities. Freedmen's towns were scattered throughout Dallas and many whites became fearful — the Ku Klux Klan first appeared in the city in 1868. By 1871, Dallas legally became a city.
The major north-south (Houston and Texas Central Railroad) and east-west (Texas and Pacific Railway) Texas railroad routes intersected in Dallas in 1873, thus ensuring its future as a commercial center.[4] The arrival of the trains also meant soaring populations — the population of Dallas shot from 3,000 in early 1872 to more than 7,000 in September of the same year. New buildings and new businesses appeared daily. Dallas was now the epicenter of the markets for raw materials like grains and cotton that was being shipped to the south and east. It was also the "last chance" for people traveling west to get supplies.
[edit] Industrial Period (1874-1929)
The Industrial Period saw Dallas grow from a center of farming and ranching into a major, self-sustaining industrial city. The industrial growth in Dallas formed partially out of problems hurting Dallas area farmers: After buying supplies on credit during the year, farmers owed merchants the majority of their crop. Costs to ship to the coast were very high, and the price of cotton was dropping.
By 1880, the Missouri-Kansas-Texas Railroad, under the leadership of Jay Gould, reached Dallas.[5] In 1888, the Dallas Zoo opened making it the first zoological garden in the state.[6] In 1890, Dallas annexed the city of East Dallas, which was larger geographically than Dallas. The annexation made Dallas the most populous city in Texas. In 1893, following the national financial panic, numerous industries and five Dallas banks failed. Cotton prices dipped below five cents a pound, and the lumber and flour markets had all but vanished, so many people began leaving the city. By 1898, the city began to recover and grow again. In 1894, Parkland Memorial Hospital opened just west of Oak Lawn.[7] In 1903, Oak Cliff, a city across the Trinity River, was annexed.
By the turn of the century Dallas was the leading drug, book, jewelry, and wholesale liquor market in the Southwestern United States. It also quickly became the center of trade in cotton, grain, and even buffalo. It was the world's leading inland cotton market, and it still led the world in manufacture of saddlery and cotton gin machinery.[4] As it further entered the 20th century, Dallas transformed from an agricultural center to a center of banking, insurance, fashion retailing and other businesses, including the founding of Neiman Marcus and the now-defunct A. Harris and Sanger Brothers ready-to-wear stores.
In 1908, the Trinity River reached a depth of 52.6 feet (16.03 m) and a width of 1.5 miles (2.4 km). Five people died, 4,000 were left homeless, and property damages were estimated at US$2.5 million. After the flood, the city wanted to find a way to control the reckless Trinity and to build a bridge linking Oak Cliff and Dallas. In 1911, George Kessler, a city planner, created a plan for both the Trinity and the city. His plans were initially ignored but ultimately brought back, updated, in the 1920s and by the 1930s many of his plans had been realized.[3]
In 1911, Dallas became the location of the eleventh regional branch of the Federal Reserve Bank and millionaire Dr. William Worthington Samuell, purchased the first ambulance for the City of Dallas and later donated thousands to expand Parkland Hospital. Aviation became a major issue in the city in World War I. Love Field was established as an aviation training ground, and Fair Park was the home of Camp Dick, a training facility as well. The city purchased Love Field in 1927 to use as a municipal airport.[3] and in 1915, Southern Methodist University opened.[3]
[edit] Oil Period (1930-1945)
Despite the onset of the Great Depression, business in construction was flourishing in 1930. That year, Columbus Marion "Dad" Joiner struck oil 100 miles (160 km) east of Dallas in Kilgore, spawning the East Texas oil boom. Dallas quickly became the financial center for the oil industry in Texas and Oklahoma. Banks made loans to develop the oil fields, and Dallas became the financial center for all oil fields in the Texas Panhandle, the Permian Basin, East Texas, Gulf Coast, and Oklahoma.[3] This put off most thoughts of depression until the middle of 1931, when falling prices and overproduction affected the city economy negatively. By then, more than 18,000 people in the city were unemployed. Before the New Deal policy began, the city had a work-for-food program that helped many.[8]
After a long campaign in the years leading up to 1936, the state of Texas chose Dallas as the site of the 1936 Texas Centennial Exposition. More than fifty buildings were built for the Exposition in Fair Park, and 10 million visitors came to see the US$25 million spectacle.[3]
During World War II, Dallas served as a manufacturing center for the war effort. In 1942, the Ford Motor plant in Dallas converted to war-time production, producing only jeeps and military trucks. In 1943 the city began war rationing, with 376,085 ration books distributed.
[edit] Mid Century (1946-1974)
In 1958 a version of the integrated circuit was invented in Dallas by Jack Kilby of Texas Instruments; this event punctuated the Dallas area's development as a center for high-technology manufacturing (though the technology Mr. Kilby developed was soon usurped by a competing technology simultaneously developed in the "Silicon Valley" in California by engineers who would go on to form Intel Corporation). During the 1950s and 1960s, Dallas became the nation's third-largest technology center, with the growth of such companies as Ling-Temco-Vought (LTV Corporation) and Texas Instruments. In 1957, developers Trammell Crow and John M. Stemmons opened a Home Furnishings Mart that grew into the Dallas Market Center, the largest wholesale trade complex in the world.[9] The same year, the Dallas Memorial Auditorium (now the Dallas Convention Center) opened near Canton and Akard Streets in what is now the Convention Center District of downtown. On 22 November 1963, President John F. Kennedy was assassinated on Elm Street while his motorcade passed through Dealey Plaza in downtown Dallas. The building from which Lee Harvey Oswald shot Kennedy, the Texas School Book Depository, has been converted into a historical museum covering the former president's life and accomplishments.
[edit] Real Estate Boom (1975-1985)
In the late 1970s and early-to-mid 1980s, Dallas underwent the building boom which produced a distinctive contemporary profile for the downtown area and a prominent skyline, influenced by nationally acclaimed architects. By the 1980s, when the oil industry mostly relocated to Houston, Dallas was beginning to benefit from a burgeoning technology boom (driven by the growing computer and telecom industries), while continuing to be a center of banking and business. In 1983, voters in Dallas and area cities approved the creation of Dallas Area Rapid Transit to replace the Dallas Transit System. In 1984, the Dallas Museum of Art moved from Fair Park as one of the first buildings in downtown's Arts District. Also in 1984, the Republican National Convention was held in Dallas. In 1985, at the peak of the real estate boom, the 72-story Bank of America Plaza (then InterFirst Plaza) opened as the tallest building in Dallas.[10] From the mid-to-late 1980s, many banks, especially in Dallas, collapsed during the Savings and Loan crisis, nearly destroying the city's economy and scrapping plans for hundreds of structures.
[edit] Recession (1986-1995)
From the mid-1980s to 2005, not a single highrise structure was built within the downtown freeway loop. Over-speculating, over-building and the Savings and Loan crisis practically destroyed the city economically. In 1987, Annette Strauss was inaugurated as the first female mayor of Dallas.[10] In 1989, the Morton H. Meyerson Symphony Center opened in the Arts District of downtown. Dallas celebrated a major landmark during this period, celebrating its 150th anniversary in 1991.
[edit] Modern Period (1996-Present)
In the late 1990s, the booming telecom industry exploded in Dallas, especially in areas like Las Colinas and the Telecom Corridor. During this time, Dallas became known as Texas's Silicon Valley, or the "Silicon Prairie."[11] Another recession prompted by the dot-com bubble-burst and the 2001 terrorist attacks hurt several of the city's vital industries. By 2004, signs of an economic turnaround began to appear. In 2005, three towers began construction amid tens of residential conversions and smaller residential projects. By the year 2010, the North Central Texas Council of Governments expects 10,000 residents to live within the loop.[12] Just north, Uptown is one of the hottest real estate markets in the country. At the beginning of 2006, nine highrise residential buildings or hotels were under construction in that area. Leading the way is the $500M phase two of Victory Park, a $3B+ project. At full build-out, it should contain more than 4,000 residences and 4M ft² of office and retail space.
The Arts District in downtown is also expected to become a major point of growth. As the Dallas Center for the Performing Arts Foundation implements construction on several new projects in its master plan for the area. When the new Winspear Opera House (Foster and Partners) and Wyly Theatre (Office for Metropolitan Architecture - Rem Koolhaas) join the existing Nasher Sculpture Center (Renzo Piano) and Meyerson Symphony Center (I.M. Pei and Partners), Dallas will be the only city in the world that has four buildings within one contiguous block that are all designed by Pritzker Architecture Prize winners.
[edit] References
- ^ a b c d Herbert E. Bolton, "Athanase de Mezieres and the Louisiana-Texas Frontier 1768-1780," Cleveland: Arthur H Clark Company, 1914.
- ^ Republic of Texas from the Handbook of Texas Online. By Joseph Milton Nance. Retrieved on 25 September 2006.
- ^ a b c d e f g Dallas Historical Society - Dallas History. Retrieved on 21 April 2006
- ^ a b c Dallas, Texas from the Handbook of Texas Online. By Jackie McElhaney and Michael V. Hazel. Retrieved on 20 April 2006.
- ^ Missouri-Kansas-Texas Railroad from the Handbook of Texas Online. By Donovan L. Hofsommer. Retrieved on 15 October 2006.
- ^ DallasZoo.com - General Information. Retrieved on 28 September 2006.
- ^ DallasNews.com: Hidden History of Dallas (1876-1900). Retrieved on 12 September 2006.
- ^ Great Depression from the Handbook of Texas Online. By Ben H. Procter. Retrieved on 20 April 2006.
- ^ Dallas Market Center - About. Retrieved on 29 August 2006.
- ^ a b Dallas Historical Society - Dallas History Timeline - 1980s. Retrieved on 3 May 2006.
- ^ City of Dallas Office of Economic Development - Information on the home page. Retrieved on 19 October 2006.
- ^ NCTCOG - 2030 Demographic Forecast - Dallas CBD. Retrieved on 18 October 2006.
[edit] See also
[edit] External links
- Dallas, Texas from the Handbook of Texas Online
- Dallas History from the Dallas Historical Society
- Dallas Police Department, published 1910, hosted by the Portal to Texas History
- Dallas, Texas, published 1910, hosted by the Portal to Texas History
