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Dallas, Texas

Nicknames : Big D, D-Town

Motto : Live Large. Think Big.

Country United: States

State: Texas

Counties: Dallas, Collin, Denton, Kaufman, and Rockwall

Founded: 1841

Incorporated: February 2, 1856

Area

City 385.0 sq mi (997.1 km²)
Land 342.5 sq mi (887.2 km²)
Water 42.5 sq mi (110.0 km²)

Elevation 430 ft (131 m)

Population (2006)

City 1,232,940 (3rd in TX, 9th in U.S.)
Density 3,544/sq mi (1,368/km²)
Metro 6,003,967 (4th Lagest in U.S.)

Time zone CST (UTC-6)

summer (DST) CDT (UTC-5)

ZIP codes: 75201-299

Area codes: 214,469,972 Metro DFW: 903,817,682

Website: http://www.dallascityhall.com

Dallas (pronounced [ˈdæl.əs] or [ˈdæl.ʊs]) is the third-largest city in the state of Texas and the ninth-largest city in the United States. The city covers 385 square miles (997 km²) and is the county seat of Dallas County. As of July 1, 2006, U.S. Census estimates put Dallas at a population of 1,232,940. The city is the main cultural and economic center of the 12-county Dallas–Fort Worth–Arlington metropolitan area—at 6 million people, it is the fourth-largest metropolitan area in the United States. Dallas is listed as a gamma world city by the Loughborough University Globalization and World Cities Study Group & Network.

Dallas was founded in 1841 and formally incorporated as a city on February 2, 1856. The city is well known for its role in the petroleum industry, telecommunications, computer technology, banking, and transportation. It is the core of the largest inland metropolitan area in the United States and lacks any navigable link to the sea—Dallas's prominence despite this comes from its historical importance as a center for the oil and cotton industries, its position along numerous railroad lines, and its powerful industrial and financial tycoons.

Other Feature Cities

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Recent Events

2010 NBA All Star Winners

The NBA All Star Game had the largest crowd ever to watch a Basketball Game with 108,713 Fans attending. This event even made the Guinness Book Of World Records. The Stadium did too, with height, width, and seating.
Paul Pierce won the 3 Point Shootout.
Nate Robinson won the Slam Dunk Contest again. He is the 1st NBA player to ever accomplish 3 Dunk Titles.
"D-Wade" won the All Star MVP.
Phoenix Sun, Steve Nash won the Skills Challenge.
Kevin Durant won Horse again.
January 28, 2010- The NBA 2010 All Star Roster is announced for the 2010 All Star Game in Dallas. The Skills Challenge will even host 2009 Skills Challenge Champion Derrick Rose, while the Dunk Contest will have Lakers Guard Shannon Brown and Defending Champion Nate Robinson.

Events In Previous Years

May 12, 2009- Kobe Bryant of the Los Angeles Lakers was 3rd in the NBA All First Team Selections, while LeBron James was 1st. Joining them on the first team are Dwyane Wade of the Heat(2nd), Dirk Nowitzki of the Mavericks(4th) and Dwight Howard of the Magic(5th).
June 2006- Dallas Mavericks: 2006 Western Conference Champions

History

Before Texas was claimed in the 1500s as a part of the Viceroyalty of New Spain by the Spanish Empire, the Dallas area was inhabited by the Caddo Native Americans. Later, France also claimed the area, but in 1819 the Adams-Onís Treaty made the Red River the northern boundary of New Spain, officially placing Dallas well within Spanish territory. The area remained under Spanish rule until 1821, when Mexico declared independence from Spain and the area became part of the Mexican state of Coahuila y Tejas. In 1836, the Republic of Texas broke off from Mexico to become an independent nation. In 1839, four years into the Republic's existence, John Neely Bryan surveyed the area around present-day Dallas. He then left for Arkansas, but returned in 1841 and founded the city of Dallas. In 1846 the Republic of Texas was annexed by the United States and Dallas County was established.

According to the City of Dallas, the origin of the name “Dallas” is a mystery, despite claims to the contrary. Bryan stated only that it was named “after my friend Dallas.” It has often been claimed that both the county and the city were named after George Mifflin Dallas, the eleventh Vice President of the United States. However, there is no evidence that Bryan ever met George Mifflin Dallas, and the area was called Dallas several years before the latter was elected. Another idea, was that the name was influenced from a small town in Pennsylvania, named "Dallas"

Other leading candidates for Dallas's eponym are:

1. Commodore Alexander James Dallas, brother of George Mifflin Dallas, stationed in the Gulf of Mexico;
2. Walter R. Dallas, who fought at San Jacinto;
3. James L. Dallas, Walter's brother and a Texas Ranger;
4. Joseph Dallas of Arkansas, who lived in the Cedar Springs area in 1843, and moved from Washington County (near Bryan's land holdings in Crawford County) to the Dallas area a few years after Bryan's arrival.

Dallas in 1905

Dallas was founded in 1841 and formally incorporated as a city on February 2, 1856. The city had a few slaves, mostly brought by settlers from Alabama and Georgia. Dallas was just another small town dotting the Texas frontier until after the American Civil War in which it was part of the Confederate States of America, and only legally became a city in 1871. The city paid the Houston and Central Texas Railroad US$5,000 to shift its route 20 miles (32 km) to the west and build its north-south tracks through Dallas, rather than through Corsicana as planned. A year later, Dallas leaders could not pay the Texas and Pacific Railroad to locate there, so they devised a way to trick the Railroad. Dallas had a rider attached to a state law which required the railroad to build its tracks through Browder Springs—which turned out to be just south of Main Street. In 1873, the major north-south and east-west Texas railroad routes intersected in Dallas, thus ensuring its future as a commercial center.

By the turn of the twentieth century Dallas was the leading drug, book, jewelry, and wholesale liquor market in the Southwestern United States. It also quickly became the center of trade in cotton, grain, and even buffalo. It was the world's leading inland cotton market, and continued to lead the world in manufacture of saddlery and cotton gin machinery. As it further entered the 20th century, Dallas transformed from an agricultural center to a center of banking, insurance, and other businesses.

In 1930, oil was discovered 100 miles (160 km) east of Dallas and the city quickly became the financial center for the oil industry in Texas and Oklahoma. In 1958 the integrated circuit was invented in Dallas by Jack Kilby of Texas Instruments, which punctuated the Dallas area's development as a center for high-technology manufacturing. During the 1950s and 1960s, Dallas became the nation's third-largest technology center, with the growth of such companies as Ling-Temco-Vought (LTV Corporation) and Texas Instruments. In 1957 two developers, Trammell Crow and John M. Stemmons, opened a Home Furnishings Mart that grew into the Dallas Market Center, the largest wholesale trade complex in the world. On November 22, 1963, President John F. Kennedy was assassinated on Elm Street while his motorcade passed through Dealey Plaza in downtown Dallas.

In the 1970s and 1980s, Dallas underwent a building boom that produced a distinctive contemporary profile and prominent skyline for downtown Dallas. Because of the immense worldwide success of the hit television series Dallas, the city became one of the most internationally recognizable U.S cities during the 1980s. The 1980s also saw many oil industry companies relocate to Houston in order to be closer to offshore operations and the Port of Houston. However, Dallas was beginning to benefit from a burgeoning technology boom at the same time, driven by the growing computer, microchip, and telecommunications industries. Dallas also remained a strong center of banking, insurance, and business. The mid-to-late 1980s were tumultuous for the city when many Dallas banks collapsed from the Savings and Loan crisis. The hit effectively threw the city's economy to its knees and plans for hundreds of millions of dollars worth of development were scrapped. The city remained in recession during the 1990s but the explosive growth of technology-based businesses kept the city's economy fairly stable—During the 1990s, Dallas became known as the Silicon Prairie, similar to California's Silicon Valley.

Recession continued to plague the city into the early 21st century. From 1988 to 2005, not a single high-rise structure was built within the downtown freeway loop, and the city was running out of developable land in north Dallas and Lake Highlands. Totally closed-off on the north by suburbs, most new housing was being built in Carrollton, Coppell, Frisco, McKinney, Plano and Richardson. By the mid-2000s, the dried up downtown market began to turn around with the construction of multiple art venues, office towers, residential towers, and residential conversions. Downtown housed little over 1,600 residents in 2000, but by the year 2010, the North Central Texas Council of Governments expects over 10,000 residents to be living in the neighborhood. Just north, Uptown is one of the hottest real estate markets in the country, and major advances are taking place in the underdeveloped south Dallas and Oak Cliff areas, including the construction of the University of North Texas at Dallas.

Geography

Dallas is the county seat of Dallas County. Portions of the city extend into neighboring Collin, Denton, Kaufman and Rockwall counties.

According to the United States Census Bureau, the city has a total area of 385 square miles (997.1 km²)—342.5 square miles (887.1 km²) of it is land and 42.5 square miles (110.1 km²) of it (11.03%) is water. Dallas makes up one-fifth of the much larger urbanized area known as the Dallas/Fort Worth Metroplex—about a quarter of all Texans live in the Dallas/Fort Worth/Arlington metropolitan area.

Topography

Dallas skyline from the Trinity River floodplain

Dallas, and its surrounding area, is mostly flat and lies at an elevation ranging from 450 feet (137 m) to 550 feet (168 m). The western edge of the Austin chalk formation, a limestone escarpment, rises 200 feet (61 m) and runs roughly north-south through Dallas County. The uplift is particularly noticeable in the neighborhood of Oak Cliff and the adjacent cities of Cockrell Hill, Cedar Hill, Grand Prairie, and Irving. Marked variations in terrain are also found in cities immediately to the west in Tarrant County surrounding Fort Worth.

The Trinity River is a major Texas waterway that passes from the city of Irving into west Dallas, where it is paralleled by Interstate 35E along the Stemmons Corridor, then flows alongside western downtown, and through and alongside south Dallas and Pleasant Grove, paralleled by Interstate 45, where it exits into unincorporated Dallas County and heads southeast to Houston. The river is flanked on both sides by 50 feet (15 m) tall earthen levees to protect the city from floods. The river has been treated much like a drainage ditch throughout Dallas's history, but as Dallas began shifting towards a postindustrial society, public outcry about a lack of aesthetic and recreational use for the river ultimately gave way to the Trinity River Project. The project, which began in the early 2000s and is scheduled to reach completion in the 2010s, will result in lakes, new park facilities and trails, and transportation improvements.

White Rock Lake is Dallas's other significant water feature. The lake and surrounding park is a popular destination among boaters, rowers, joggers, and bikers in the Lakewood/Casa Linda Estates neighborhoods of east Dallas. The 66 acre (267,000 m²) Dallas Arboretum and Botanical Garden lies on the lake's eastern shore. Bachman Lake, just northwest of Love Field, is a smaller lake and park also used for recreation. Lake Ray Hubbard, a 22,745 acre (92 km²) lake, is a vast and popular recreational lake located in an extension of Dallas surrounded by Garland, Rowlett, Rockwall and Sunnyvale. Mountain Creek Lake is a small lake along Dallas's border with Grand Prairie and is home to the (defunct as of September 1998) Naval Air Station Dallas (Hensley Field). North Lake, a small lake in an extension of Dallas surrounded by Irving and Coppell, served primarily as a water source for a nearby power plant, but the surrounding area is now being targeted for redevelopment due to its proximity to Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport (a plan that the neighboring cities oppose).

Architecture

Dallas' skyline contains several buildings over 700 feet (210 m) in height and the city is considered the fifteenth-tallest city on Earth.

Most of the notable architecture in Dallas is modernist and postmodernist. Iconic examples of modernist architecture include I. M. Pei's Fountain Place, the Bank of America Plaza, Renaissance Tower, and Reunion Tower. Examples of postmodernist architecture include the JPMorgan Chase Tower and Chase Center. Several smaller structures are fashioned in the Gothic Revival (Kirby Building) and neoclassical (Davis and Wilson Buildings) styles. One architectural “hotbed” in the city is a stretch of homes along Swiss Avenue, which contains all shades and variants of architecture from Victorian to neoclassical.

The following is a list of buildings and structures (of all types) in Dallas, Texas (USA)

Tallest Structures


By structural height	By roof height
Bank of America Plaza 921\|ft Renaissance Tower 886\|ft Chase Center 787\|ft JPMorgan Chase Tower 738\|ft Fountain Place 720\|ft	Bank of America Plaza 921\|ft Chase Center 787\|ft JPMorgan Chase Tower 738\|ft Fountain Place 720\|ft Renaissance Tower 710\|ft

Complete Listing

JPMorgan Chase Tower

List of tallest buildings in Texas

Dallas Architecture

Demographics

Historical Populations

1860=678

1870=3000

1880=10358

1890=38067

1900=42639

1910=92104

1920=158976

1930=260475

1940=294734

1950=434462

1960=679684

1970=844401

1980=904078

1990=1006877

2000=1188580

Estimate 2005=1213825

As of the census of 2000, there were 1,188,580 people, 451,833 households, and 266,581 families residing in Dallas proper. The population density was 3,469.9 people per square mile (1,339.7/km²). There were 484,117 housing units at an average density of 1,413.3 per square mile (545.7/km²).

There were 451,833 households out of which 30.3% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 38.8% were married couples living together, 14.9% had a female householder with no husband present, and 41.0% are classified as non-families by the United States Census Bureau. Of 451,833 households, 23,959 are unmarried partner households: 18,684 heterosexual, 3,615 same-sex male, and 1,660 same-sex female households. 32.9% of all households were made up of individuals and 6.5% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 2.58 and the average family size was 3.37.

In the city the population was spread out with 26.6% under the age of 18, 11.8% from 18 to 24, 35.3% from 25 to 44, 17.7% from 45 to 64, and 8.6% who were 65 years of age or older. The median age was 30 years. For every 100 females there were 101.6 males. For every 100 females age 18 and over, there were 100.5 males.

The median income for a household in the city was $37,628, and the median income for a family was $40,921. Males had a median income of $31,149 versus $28,235 for females. The per capita income for the city was $22,183. About 14.9% of families and 17.8% of the population were below the poverty line, including 25.1% of those under age 18 and 13.1% of those aged 65 or over. In 2006 the median price for a house was $123,800, and save a 2003 recession, Dallas has seen a steady increase in the cost of homes over the past 6 years.

The racial makeup of Dallas was 48.89% White, 40.41% Hispanic or Latino of any race, 25.88% Black or African American, 0.54% Native American, 2.91% Asian, 0.01% Pacific Islander, 20.24% from other races, and 5.33% from two or more races.[citation needed] Hispanics outnumbered African-Americans for the first time in the 2000 census as the largest minority group in Dallas.

The city has historically been predominantly white but its population diversified as it grew in size and importance over the 20th century—almost 25% of Dallas's population is foreign born. The largest minority group in the city is the Hispanics—Dallas is a major destination for Mexican immigrants seeking opportunity in the United States because it is relatively close, along with the rest of Texas, to the U.S.-Mexico border. The southwest area of the city, especially Oak Cliff, is a mixture of black and hispanic people Hispanic. The southern and southeastern areas of the city, especially Pleasant Grove and south Dallas, are predominantly black. The northern and eastern parts of the city are mostly white and the northwestern portion of the city is home to a fairly equal mix of Hispanics and Asians. The city also contains localized populations of Caribbean, Chinese, Taiwanese, Korean, Indian, Vietnamese, German, Muslim, Polish, Romanian, Russian and Jewish peoples. In addition Dallas has a high gay population and is estimated to have the ninth largest gay population in the United States.

External links