Draft

Dallas redirects here. For other uses see Dallas (disambiguation).
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Nicknamed "Big D," Dallas is considered to be a very cosmopolitan city and a major hub of business, originally in banking and insurance, especially for the burgeoning oil industry, and then later in transportation and technology. However, despite all of this, Dallas is often remembered most for being the site of the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, which occurred at Dealey Plaza at the western end of downtown Dallas on November 22, 1963.

Dallas is the largest city of the Dallas/Fort Worth Metroplex, a large metropolitan area in North Texas. As of the 2000 census, Dallas had a total population of 1,188,580 and the Metroplex had a population of 5,222,000, making it the largest metropolitan area in Texas, the ninth largest metropolitan area in the United States, and one of the 50 largest metropolitan areas in the world.

History

John Neely Bryan first visited the area that would become Dallas in 1839. He initially envisioned setting up a trading post with the local Caddo, Cherokee and Tonkawa Indians and settlers. The site—which, at the time, was part of the Republic of Texas—was on the Trinity River at the easiest point to cross and was near the route of the proposed Preston Trail that was to run from Austin to the Red River.

Initial settlement

After surveying the area for his trading post, Bryan returned home to Van Buren, Arkansas to settle his affairs. However, when Bryan returned in November 1841, he discovered that a treaty had been signed, removing all of the Native Americans from the area and, by extension, many of his potential customers. Bryan proceeded to transform his idea of a trading post to that of a permanent community to be established at the same location. The first settlers came from the nearby Bird's Fort community, near the present-day boundaries of Euless, Fort Worth and Arlington in Tarrant County.

While Dallas County was established five years later in 1846 and was named after George Mifflin Dallas, the United States Vice President at the time, the origin of the city's name is debatable. Dallas was so called by its residents at least as early as 1843. There are four theories as to the origin of the city's name; it was named:

• after George Mifflin Dallas;
• after George Dallas' father Alexander James Dallas, a commodore who was stationed in the Gulf of Mexico and was the United States Secretary of the Treasury around the end of the War of 1812;
• in a town-naming contest in 1842;
• after the friend of the son of Dallas' founder, John Neely Bryan, whose son later stated that his father had said he had named it "after my friend Dallas" a person whose identity is not certain.

The American Civil War and reconstruction

By 1856, Dallas was incorporated as a town and prior to the American Civil War, the town boasted a population of about 2,000 people. In July 1860, a fire broke out in the central business district, destroying most of the buildings. Many of the citizens suspected a slave plot and three African-American slaves were hung in suspicion. (Arson was never proven definitively as a cause for the 1860 fire.)

In 1861, Dallas County, like much of the south, overwhelmingly voted in favor of secession and joining the Confederate States of America. Dallas—like almost all of Texas—was mostly untouched by the fighting, but worked to supply the war effort with soldiers, money, flour. munitions and other supplies. Cotton from Louisiana and Mississippi was transported to Dallas ahead of the Union Army's advance.

While the war officially ended on April 9, 1865 with the surrender by Robert E. Lee at Appomattox Court House, slaves in Texas where not freed until Union soldiers, led by Major General Gordon Granger, landed in Galveston on June 19, 1865 and proclaimed that all slaves were free—over two years after the Emancipation Proclamation. This date, now referred to as Juneteenth is celebrated by many in the African American community in Texas and throughout the world.

However, like much of the South, a large animosity between whites and blacks remained, setting the stage for future racial strife in the city. The Ku Klux Klan first appeared in Dallas in 1868 and would become a growing force in Dallas following World War I.

The late 19th century

Many southerners migrated to the Dallas area during the period of Reconstruction following the Civil War. Unlike other southern cities like Atlanta, Georgia and Chattanooga, Tennessee, the infrastructure of cities and farmland in Texas had remained intact during the war. Dallas became the center of the buffalo market.

In 1872, the Houston & Texas Central Railroad was set up through Dallas on its way to Sherman. Initially, the company had planned on driving the north-south artery through Corsicana, about 50 miles (80 km) southeast of Dallas, but the city offered the railroad US$5,000 (a massive amount at the time) and 115 acres (465,000 m²) of land to put their line through Dallas instead.

In 1873, Dallas attempted to do the same to lure the Texas & Pacific Railroad, but the east-west railroad wanted to build their line just south of Corsicana and were not interested in any offers from Dallas. However, Dallas city leaders were successful in persuading a Texas State Legislator to place a rider on another bill requiring that the T&P place their railroad within one mile of Browder Springs, which at the time was Dallas's water supply. (Browder Springs dried up in the early 1900s and is currently situated in the area at Old City Park.) The railroad was unhappy with having to reroute their railroad, but was forced to do so and Dallas had become a major railroad epicenter.

Dallas had become a major location for raw materials that were shipped there from throughout the state. The city received its first telegraph line with the arrival of the railroads. The city's population exploded and had reached over 10,000 by 1880. The city set up its first utilities, fire station and gas lamps.

During this time, Dallas also became associated with the outlaw nature of the American West. Doc Holliday set up a dentistry shop in Dallas until he began gambling and later killed a man in 1875 before fleeing the town. Sam Bass robbed four trains near Dallas in 1878. Belle Starr also got her start in Dallas and had a farm, today located near the border between Dallas and Mesquite that was reportedly a safe haven for the James-Younger gang and other outlaws.

Dallas continued to grow at a healthy clip in both population and area. In 1890, the city annexed the city of East Dallas and in 1903, they annexed Oak Cliff, on the other side of the Trinity River.

References

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