Nobody is sure which Dallas the city of Dallas was named after
In 1839 John Neely Bryan drove a stake into a bluff near the three forks of the Trinity River, then left, returning two years later to found a settlement he called Dallas. The official marker credits a vice president, but a commodore, two other brothers and a Scottish village all have backers.
Long before Bryan, North Texas belonged to the Caddo, Tawakoni, Wichita, Kickapoo and Comanche. Spain claimed Texas in the 18th century as part of New Spain, and France asserted a claim without settling much. The Adams-Onís Treaty of 1819 fixed the Red River as New Spain's northern limit, leaving the future city well inside Spanish land. Mexican independence in 1821 made it part of Coahuila y Tejas, and in 1836 mostly Anglo-American Texians broke away to form a republic. Six flags have flown over the site in all: French, Spanish, Mexican, Texan, Confederate and American.
Bryan scouted the spot three years after that independence, with his dog and a Cherokee companion he called Ned. The marker's candidate is George M. Dallas of Philadelphia, vice president of the United States, but his brother Commodore Alexander James Dallas and the brothers Walter R. and James R. Dallas are also proposed. One theory reaches back to Dallas in Moray, Scotland, much as Houston's name traces through Sam Houston to a Renfrewshire village.
Railways made the town. Lines crossing North and East Texas brought cotton, cattle and, later, oil, and helped both Dallas and Fort Worth grow. The interstate era added four converging highways and a fifth loop, and Dallas Fort Worth International Airport became one of the world's largest and busiest. The result is a major inland port and industrial and financial centre, remarkable because the metro area has no navigable route to the sea, the largest American inland metro in that position. DART runs trains and buses across the city and suburbs.
The 2020 census found 1.3 million people in the city, ninth in the country and third in Texas, and 8.5 million across the metroplex, fourth nationally. Dallas is the seat of Dallas County and spills into four neighbouring counties. Defence, banking and private equity, information technology, telecommunications and transport lead its economy. Of the metroplex's 23 Fortune 500 headquarters, 11 lie inside city limits, and the region has more than 41 colleges and universities, the most of any Texan metro.
Source: Dallas
