11/02/2023
Fun facts
𝗗𝗔𝗟𝗟𝗔𝗦 𝗧𝗥𝗔𝗡𝗦𝗜𝗧𝗜𝗢𝗡𝗜𝗡𝗚 𝗙𝗥𝗢𝗠 𝗥𝗔𝗡𝗖𝗛𝗘𝗦 𝗔𝗡𝗗 𝗙𝗔𝗥𝗠𝗦 - 𝗧𝗢 𝗔𝗡 𝗨𝗥𝗕𝗔𝗡 𝗖𝗜𝗧𝗬
* A repeat Frisco Talk history post from 11/1/21
One of my all time favorite Dallas skyline photos. Taken by Bill Langley in 1945. The Dallas population was just around 350,000. (Frisco’s 2023 population is 229,230 as a comparison.)
Photographer Bill Langley took this photo of a cattle drive crossing through Dallas. He heard the cattle drive from inside his photography studio and quickly stepped out his back door to shoot this snapshot. Now catalogued in The Library of Congress. Back when ranches & farms were still fairly close to downtown Dallas.
Uptown & Oak Lawn were considered “North Dallas”. And the village of Highland Park was considered “out in the country”. (And due to the mostly non-paved roads with dozens upon dozens of 90 degree turns following farmers’ fence lines, Frisco was a 2-3 hour drive from downtown Dallas.)
Victory Park (American Airlines Center, W Hotel, etc.) is where those double smokestacks are. The smokestacks were part of the Dallas Power & Light generating plant, next to the big Neuhoff Meat packing plant (once robbed by Bonnie & Clyde), the cattle stockyards and also a huge rail yard of dozens of tracks. (The cowboy on his horse is about where the Anatole hotel on I-35 is today.)
This pictured cattle drive may very well have continued north up Preston Road (the Shawnee Trail), which was the only “safe dry route” to the Kansas City stockyards for those coming from south & central Texas. Due to the high elevation of the Preston Ridge running through Frisco, cattle drives didn’t have to cross any creeks or rivers until they hit the Red River on the Oklahoma border.
The tallest buildings include the Mercantile Bank building, the Magnolia Oil building (with the neon Pegasus flying horse on the roof), and the Adolphus Hotel.
* Zoom into the tall building in the center of the photo (above the horse’s head) to see Pegasus atop the Magnolia Oil building.
(Sources: Rick Fletcher with Frisco Talk & Jim Foster with Pioneers of Dallas County)
