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| Home - City Guide - Dallas - City Overview | ||
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City Overview Dallas is a young city with all the vigour of youth. Elegies to modern architecture rise like glass trees out of the downtown area. In 1841, it was simply a plan of 20 streets on the 256 hectares (640 acres) claimed by a Tennessee lawyer, John Neely Bryan. Today, it is the ninth largest city in the USA and the eastern half of the 'Metroplex', the western 'other half' being Fort Worth. Railways, as with so many great cities in the USA, were the key to a sudden blossoming of a former outpost. As a frontier post of the 'Wild West', it established its reputation as a place for entrepreneurs and 'go-getters'. The infamous Doc Holliday started out here as a dentist before moving on to 'alternative' employment. In the 1870s, two railroads, the Missouri, Kansas and Texas Line and the Texas and Pacific Railroad, met at Dallas, creating the catalyst for rapid development as a trade centre. A series of public and private enterprises from then on made sure that Dallas was known well beyond Texas. Before any financial and primary industry arrived though, the Nieman Marcus store put Dallas on the fashion map in 1907. In 1914, the Federal Reserve Bank was established and Dallas Love Airfield was developed in 1927. Then 'black gold' made its mark. A prospector named 'Dad' Joiner struck oil 160km (100 miles) east of Dallas in 1930, leading to the development of the East Texas Oilfield. Dallas was already a financial and business centre and so could easily become a focus for the nascent oil industry. Never content to rest on its success, Dallas has always kept up with technological advances. In 1958, the integrated-circuit computer chip was invented here, leading to a whole burgeoning of industries in 'Silicon Prairie'. Despite all its business acumen, Dallas is not a city that sneers at having fun. The margarita cocktail and the Tex-Mex chicken fajita are also Dallas innovations. Unfortunately for Dallas, despite all its zeal and innovative energy, it will always be remembered for one, if not two, killings. The first and most shocking occurred on 22 November 1963, when the then President J F Kennedy was assassinated in his convertible limousine in downtown Dallas. The second killing may only have been fictional but, when J R Ewing was shot by an unknown killer in the TV series Dallas, it caused upheavals and whisperings in all the 96 countries where it was screened. But Dallas - the city - is always looking to the future. Transport again proved a new stimulus to development when, in conjunction with Fort Worth, it was decided to build a new and huge airport (DFW), fulfilling John Neely Bryan's original idea of creating a powerful inland port and cultural focus. In true Texas fashion, this is a city meant for superlatives and mind-boggling statistics. It has more shopping centres than any other US city and the world's largest bronze monument stands at the Dallas Convention Center, which is itself big enough to accommodate not only a whole baseball field but also the longest recorded hit of a home run, which flies beyond the field. With a tenth of its workforce in the hospitality industry, it is always a welcoming city. Whether visited in the mild winters or hot summers, when air conditioning is an absolute necessity, Dallas offers true southern hospitality, be it in a humble apartment or in the Mansion on Turtle Creek, the only US hotel rated in the world's top ten. |
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