7.50 a History Journal for Dallas & North Central Texas
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Spring 2015 LEGACIES A History Journal for Dallas & North Central Texas LInfrastructure The Great Divide: Roads from the Red River Narrative of an Auto Trip in 1903 Narrative of an Auto Trip The Houston & Texas Central Railway The Houston & Texas The Politics of Space and the First Trinity River Valley Controversy River Valley The Politics of Space and the First Trinity $7.50 Legacies is a joint publication of: Dallas Heritage Village The Dallas Historical Society Old Red Museum of Dallas Couonty History & Culture The Sixth Floor Museum at Dealey Plaza Editor Michael V. Hazel Designer Liz Conrad Graphic Design Book Review Editor Evelyn Montgomery Editorial Assistants Sam Childers Stephen Fagin Editorial Advisory Board W. Marvin Dulaney University of Texas at Arlington Elizabeth York Enstam Dallas, Texas Robert B. Fairbanks University of Texas at Arlington Russell Martin Southern Methodist University Jackie McElhaney Dallas, Texas Darwin Payne Southern Methodist University Carol Roark Fort Worth, Texas Gerald D. Saxon University of Texas at Arlington Thomas H. Smith Dallas, Texas Legacies is made possible by the generous support of: A. H. Belo Corporation The Inge Foundation Front cover Legacies: A History Journal for Dallas and North Central Texas Although dreams of navigating the Trinity River to the is published semiannually. The editor welcomes articles relating Gulf of Mexico proved elusive, some barge traffic did to the history of Dallas and North Central Texas. Please address take place, as this early twentieth-century postcard inquiries to Editor, Legacies, 1515 S. Harwood St., Dallas, TX 75215; illustrates. However, periodic flooding made the river phone 214-413-3665 or email [email protected]. more of a liability than an asset, leading George Kessler to recommend moving it away from downtown Copyright 2015: Dallas Heritage Village and confining it between levees. See “The Great The Dallas Historical Society Divide,” beginning on p. 48. Old Red Museum of Dallas County History & Culture The Sixth Floor Museum at Dealey Plaza LEGACIES A History Journal for Dallas & North Central Texas Volume L27 Roads from the Red River 4 Number By Ted A. Campbell 1 DEPARTMENTS The Houston & Texas Central Railway 21 By Thomas H. Smith From the Editor Narrative of an Auto Trip in 1903 Spring 3 40 Transcribed and Introduced by Jeff Dunn Book Reviews 2015 The Great Divide: 61 48 The Politics of Space and the First Trinity Infrastructure River Valley Controversy Contributors By Robert B. Fairbanks 71 Dallas Then and Now 72 All previous issues of Legacies from 1989 through 2014 are online at the University of North Texas Portal to Texas History. The address is: http://texashistory.unt.edu/browse/collections/LHJNT. The flood of 1908 washed out all the bridges between Dallas and Oak Cliff. The Oak Cliff Viaduct, completed in 1913, provided a permanent connection between the two sides of town. The bridge is still in use, known today as the Houston Street Viaduct. See “The Great Divide,” beginning on p. 48. 2L LEGACIES Spring 2015 FROM THE EDITOR “I nfrastructure” is one of those words often neared Dallas, the town complained about the tossed around in contemporary political debates, location it chose for a depot and the prospects of usually when an official bemoans the decaying a rival community developing around it. state of roads, sewage systems, or power grids. The arrival of the railroads succeeded in But when describing the essential underlying turning Dallas into the economic hub of North structures that enable daily communication and Central Texas. This led to some improvement transportation, it’s a legitimate term. And the four in streets and roads, although most remained articles in this issue of Legacies all deal with the dirt. But the quality of the road system didn’t development of some aspect of the infrastructure progress much until the advent of the automobile. that allowed Dallas to grow. Horseless carriages, it turned out, demanded Through careful analyses of early maps smoother surfaces than four-footed animals. Jeff and pioneer memoirs, Ted Campbell concludes Dunn shares with us a delightful account of an that instead of one defined route from the Red early car trip between Dallas and Fort Worth. River to Dallas (often labeled the Preston Road The Trinity River, which attracted John Neely or Trail) in the 1840s and ’50s, early settlers Bryan and other early settlers, never fulfilled utilized a complex network or corridor of their hopes as a transportation corridor. On the parallel trails, depending on such factors as the contrary, periodic floods turned it into a liability. location of river fords and ferries. Getting to the And acres of flood plain, right in the heart of the Dallas area wasn’t easy in the mid-nineteenth city, remained useless and undeveloped. Robert century. Successful pioneers had to be flexible Fairbanks recounts the efforts to confine the and ingenious. Campbell also explains how the Trinity between levees, a project first seriously existence of what was sometimes called “the proposed in George Kessler’s 1911 City Plan but McKinney Road” became forgotten while the not realized for more than two decades. In the reputation of the Preston Road survived. process, it divided civic leaders and destroyed While these early trails brought a small a leading civic improvement association. As stream of settlers to the Dallas area, they couldn’t citizens continue to debate the best uses for the handle sizeable immigration, nor could they Trinity River valley, it’s timely to study this handle the importation of manufactured goods earlier conflict. with any efficiency or economy. From an early A city is dependent on good infrastructure. point in Dallas’s history, its residents recognized When it works well, most people take it for that the ultimate solution was the railroads. But granted. But developing and maintaining it are the struggle to get a railroad to Dallas took much huge tasks, ones succeeding generations must time and effort, a story Thomas Smith recounts in shoulder. detail. And even as the Houston & Texas Central —Michael V. Hazel LLEGACIES Spring 2015 3 Roads from the Red River By Ted A. Campbell n June 1891 The Dallas Morning News carried The account is interesting, for one reason, be- Ian account of an early settler in Dallas County, cause the settlers had chosen to leave the United Benjamin Prigmore. One of the founders of the States when they celebrated this gleeful Fourth Dallas County Pioneer Association, Prigmore of July in 1844. For another thing, it may be the described his family’s journey from Missouri to first documented reference to barbecue in north Texas forty-seven years earlier, in 1844. His ac- Texas. But it is also interesting because of the lo- count begins with this incident: cation “on the East Fork of the Trinity.” When we were moving to Texas we The track that Benjamin Prigmore, his par- stopped on the East Fork of the Trin- ents, and their band of immigrants took from ity several days to rest. There were some Missouri to the Dallas area was probably part of eighteen or twenty immigrant wagons that vast trail system stretching from Missouri to along, and we were a pretty jolly crowd. south Texas that by the 1850s had come to be The fourth day of July found us here called “the Shawnee Trail.”2 But the location in camp, and we thought we ought to Prigmore described in this account was not on celebrate our great national birthday; so the Preston Road, earlier known as the Military we had the biggest sort of a dance upon Road that had been laid out in 1841 and had the green grass of the prairie. The fat- brilliantly steered between the East Fork and the test yearling in the herd of cattle was Elm Fork of the Trinity. The area Prigmore de- killed and barbecued; and perhaps no scribed was probably near present-day McKinney, festive occasion was ever more enjoyed just below the headwaters of the East Fork of the than that 4th of July was by us—a lit- Trinity. tle band of pioneers on this, the Texas The origins of Dallas were tied up with the frontier, at that time.1 roads from the Red River, the roads that John 4L LEGACIES Spring 2015 Coffee’s Crossing, 1837 Coffee’s Trading Post, 1837 Preston, 1845 Mitchell/Colbert Ferry, 1842 Fort Johnston, 1840 Shawneetown Lexington, 1837 Sand Spring, 1840 Iron Ore Creek, 1840 (Old) Warren, 1837 (Old) Sherman,1846 Sherman, 1848 Route of Chihuahua Traders (1840) Fort Inglish Camp Jordan, 1840-41 (Bonham), 1837 Pilot Grove, 1848 Military Road (1841) ⚑ Colin McKinney, ca. 1846 Throckmorton, 1841 Buckner, 1841/2 McKinney, 1846 ♦ 1844 Prigmore crosses East Fork ♦ 1844 Muncey Massacre Military Road (1841) Farmers Breckinridge, ca. 1844 Roads from the Red River Dallas-to-Bonham Road (1842-3) Branch, 1842 to the Dallas Area, ca. 1848 ⚑ Prigmore, 1844 Original materials Copyright © 2015, Ted A. Campbell Cedar Springs, 1843 Central National Road, 1844 Base County Maps Dallas, 1841 derived from Texas Tech University Center for Geospatial Technology http://www.gis.ttu.edu/center/index.php Surveyed or mapped road Presumed road or trail Early Settlement ⚑ Pioneer Homestead Military Road (1841) ♦ Events This map, compiled by the author, lays out the various trails leading from the Red River to the Dallas area during the pioneer era. LLEGACIES Spring 2015 5 Neely Bryan and Benjamin Prigmore and so er as the principal entry point for early settlers many immigrants to the Dallas area traveled. In entering Texas by way of the “Texas Road,” the what follows, I will argue that there was at least Oklahoma portion of the Shawnee Trail, then fol- one important alternative to the Preston Road lowing the Military Road or Preston Road from from the Red River to the Dallas area.