Dallas is a young city with all the vigour of youth. Effigies of 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) of south central America, 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 half being Fort Worth.
As with so many great cities in the USA, railways were the key to a sudden blossoming of a former outpost. As a frontier post of the Wild West, Dallas 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 as a gambler and gunfighter. In the 1870s, two railroads (the Missouri, Kansas and Texas Railroad and the Texas and Pacific Railroad) met at Dallas, creating the catalyst for the city’s rapid development as a trade centre.
Before any financial and primary industry arrived, however, the Neiman Marcus store put Dallas on the fashion map in 1907. In 1914, the Federal Reserve Bank was established and Dallas Love Airfield was opened in 1927. Then oil made its mark. A prospector named ‘Dad’ Joiner struck the ‘black gold’ 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 easily became 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 frozen margarita machine and the Tex-Mex chicken fajita are both Dallas innovations. Unfortunately for Dallas, despite all its zeal and innovative energy, it will always be remembered for one, if not two, shootings. The first and most shocking occurred on 22 November 1963, when President J F Kennedy was assassinated in his convertible limousine in downtown Dallas. The second shooting may only have been fictional but, when J R Ewing was shot by an unknown killer in the TV series Dallas, it caused shock and gossip in all the 130 countries where it was screened.
But Dallas is always looking to the future. Transport again proved to be a new stimulus for development in the 1960s when, in conjunction with Fort Worth, the decision was made to build a huge new airport (Dallas-Fort Worth International), 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. Dallas has more shopping centres than any other US city, while the world’s largest bronze monument stands (depicting an entire cattle drive) 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 well beyond the turf.
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, recently ranked as one of the world’s top hotels. And with a 10th of its workforce in the hospitality industry, Dallas is always a welcoming city.