Dallas

The shining skyscrapers of Dallas are visible from far across the praries of northeastern Texas. Considered the financial center of the Southwest, Dallas is the home of banks, oil companies, insurance companies, and many other businesses. It is also a culturual center and an important transportation hub.


Dallas was born in 1841, when John Neely Bryan built a trading post on the banks of the Trinity River. The town that grew around his log cabin was named for George M. Dallas, a United States Vice President who heped Texas achieve statehood. The arrival of the railroad in the 1870s allowed the farmers near Dallas to ship cotton they grew in the rich prarie soil. When oil fields opened in east Texxas in the 1930s, Dallas became the headquarters for hundreds of oil companies.

After World War II, Dallas becoame a center of manufacturing, financial services, and trade shows. Skyscrapers shot up. The tallest of these, National Bank Plaza, is 72 stories high. Prosperity helped Dallas become a center for culture and recreation. Its theater, opera, and music groups are world famous. So are its museums, its zoos; and its football team, the Dallas Cowboys. The Texas State Fair is the country’s largest, drawing three million people to Dallas each October.

John F. Kennedy Memorial Plaza in Dallas is near the spot where Kennedy was shot in November, 1963.