Published by The History Press
Charleston, SC
www.historypress.com
Copyright 2019 by Georgette Driscoll
All rights reserved
First published 2019
E-Book edition 2019
ISBN 978.1.43966.801.6
Library of Congress Control Number: 2019943350
Print edition ISBN 978.1.4671.4226.7
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Every effort has been made by the author to make this guide as helpful and accurate as possible. Please keep in mind that many things can change after publishing, and it is always best to call before an outing to confirm the information and details included in this guide.
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About the cover
Front cover, top: The Big D experienced many booms over the years. One of the most dramatic was the downtown building boom in the 1950s, which introduced many of the iconic skyscrapers still standing today. Photograph by the author; bottom (left to right): Much like during the 1930s, when downtown had more than three hundred streetcars in operation, the M-Line trolley offers free rides through uptown, downtown and the Dallas Arts District. Photograph by the author; The Hall of State building at Fair Park now houses the Dallas Historical Society, which formed in 1922. The Tejas Warrior statue focuses attention toward the buildings grand entrance. Photograph by the author; The City of Dallas manages almost four hundred parks containing over twenty thousand acres of land. Pictured are the swans at Fair Park, home of the State Fair of Texas. Photograph by the author.
CONTENTS
PREFACE
I was born and raised in New Mexico. My youth was spent amongst four-hundred-year-old low-slung adobe buildings in Santa Fe. The town was and still is very small, with a vibrant arts culture. I would safely ride my bike through the downtown square, where Native Americans sold jewelry made of turquois and silver. Along my route through the plaza, Id pass the tallest building I knew, the Cathedral Basilica of St. Francis of Assisi.
Santa Fe has legislation that helps preserve the citys history, including ordinances that regulate the architecture style and building height. My family took day trips to Albuquerque, but that was the most exposure I had to a larger city. I was eight years old when my family took our first major road trip out of the Land of Enchantment.
It was evening before we made it to Dallas. My older sister and I were both sleeping soundly in the backseat. Our mom shook us awake to see the city. I wiped away the sleep and was absolutely in awe of what I saw. The glass skyscrapers, massive highways and busy people everywhere. Dallas was so new, so alive and so big.
At some point, I whispered to my sister that someday I would live in Dallas and work in one of those tall buildings. Some twenty-plus years later, I fulfilled that dream and moved to Dallas, working on the seventeenth floor of one of the skyscrapers that mesmerized me as a child.
Dallas was big to me as a child and is still big to me now. No wonder its nicknamed the Big D. It lives up to the name, but not just because of the tall buildings and ever-expanding boundaries. It has a big history with big stories and big characters.
As my family settled in and started to explore Dallas, I pleasured in learning all I could about the history. Im honored to share this with you in A History Lovers Guide to Dallas. The book starts with four chapters that focus on Dallass past and feature sites that are relevant to the citys development. The following four chapters focus on specific visitor options related to art, music and theater, nature and sports. The book closes with resources and suggestions organized by area and season to further help readers plan their adventures.
Growing up in Santa Fe helped teach me the importance of history. The story of the Big D, as you will soon read, has been one of fast growth. I hope this book serves as an inspiration to slow down, learn from the past, help preserve historic places for the future and strive for equality for all.
Thank you to Mark Doty, chief planner and historic preservation officer for the City of Dallas and author of Lost Dallas, whose work tirelessly promotes preservation efforts and quality of life in Dallas. I am deeply grateful for the guidance and support provided by Ben Gibson and Sara Miller from The History Press. Thank you to Donna Kidby, whose take on life is always refreshing and who easily translates that energy in her photos.
Last but not least, a heartfelt thanks goes to my amazing friends and family, including my loving husband, John, and my two sons, Jack and Walt, who are always immensely supportive of my thirst for knowledge and my wild pursuits.
FOREWORD
As the chief planner and historic preservation officer for the City of Dallas, I am constantly asked, What is historic in Dallas? While such a question can seem both maddening and ignorant, I cannot help but understand and sympathize with the reasoning behind such a statement. Like many Sun Belt boomtowns, Dallas is blessed with a booming economy and a short-term memory of history or of its humble beginnings.
While Fort Worth, its sister city, has been dubbed Where the West Begins, Dallas has sometimes been given the unfortunate tag of Where the East Peters Out. Though it is considered an insult by some, there is some truth to the label. Dallass history is not readily apparent at first glance and is far more complex and rich than many realize. Dallas is indeed where the East petered out, but also where the Republic of Texas pushed northward from the Gulf Coast, where remnants of the Old South ended, where cotton was once king and where cutting-edge technologies were developed and revolutionized. Dallas is educated and cultured enough to once have supported the largest bookstore in the world, but it was, at one time, a hub of Ku Klux Klan activity. To this day, struggles with institutional racism cripple large swaths of the city. Dallas bore the horrific assassination of a president on its streets, earning it the shameful nickname City of Hate, only to reemerge in the ensuing decades as the birthplace of Americas Team and the stomping ground of televisions lovable villain J.R. Ewing.
Dallas is home to more than 150 (and counting) individual landmarks, parks, cemeteries and neighborhoods that are deemed official city landmarks. Overall, these designations encompass more than four thousand structures that are representative of all types and styles of late-nineteenth- and twentieth-century architecture. Gracing neighborhoods, commercial districts, parklands and public spaces, these sites are illustrative of how, with modern urban planning theories, the historic is able to meld withand indeed enhancethe modern cityscape.
