The skyline tells that story. Reunion Tower — “the Ball,” a geodesic sphere on a slender stem, lit up at night — went up in 1978 and became an instant landmark. Out at Fair Park stands something rarer still: the largest collection of Art Deco exposition buildings in the world, raised for the 1936 Texas Centennial Exposition, all murals and statuary and grand promenades. Downtown, the Dallas Arts District grew into one of the biggest urban arts districts in the country, its concert halls and museums drawn by some of the most famous architects alive. Dallas has always liked to build big, and to be seen doing it.
Dallas almost shouldn’t be here. There was no harbor, no mountain pass, no obvious reason for a great city on this stretch of the Blackland Prairie — only a good place to cross the Trinity River. The Caddo had used that ford for generations when, in 1841, a Tennessee lawyer named John Neely Bryan built a trading post beside it and waited for a town to grow up around him. It did: Dallas became the county seat in 1846, took a town charter in 1856, and when the railroads crossed here in 1872 and 1873, the prairie outpost was suddenly a crossroads with somewhere to send its goods.
Why People Visit Dallas
Dallas rewards visitors who like a city with confidence: a skyline you can read like a history book, a world-class arts district, museums of real weight, and food worth crossing town for. Add the flying red Pegasus, the Art Deco of Fair Park, and Texas hospitality scaled up, and Big D makes a strong case for itself.
