History of Dallas - Settlement (1839-1855)

Settlement (1839-1855)

John Neely Bryan, looking for a good trading post to serve Native Americans and settlers, first surveyed the Dallas area in 1839. Bryan, who shared Sam Houston's insight into the wisdom of Native American customs, must have realized that Caddo trails he came across intersected at one of the few natural fords for hundreds of miles along the wide Trinity floodplain. Bryan also knew that the planned Preston Trail was to run near the ford — the north-south route and the ford at Bryan's Bluff became more important when the United States annexed Texas in 1845.

After Bryan surveyed the area, he returned home to Arkansas. While there, a treaty was signed removing all Native Americans from Northern Texas. When he returned in November 1841, half of his customers, the Native Americans, were gone. He decided that instead of creating a trading post, he would create a permanent settlement, which he founded in November 1841. In 1844 J. P. Dumas surveyed and laid out a 0.5 square miles (1.3 km2) section of blocks and streets near present downtown. The name has uncertain origins, as there were a number of people named Dallas who could have been the inspiration for the name.

In 1855, a group of European artists and musicians, notably French, Belgians and Swiss, set up a utopian community west of Dallas called "La Reunion". When that venture collapsed in 1857 many of the artists moved to Dallas, where they established the base of a culture which, a century and a half later, is reflected in creative neighborhoods like Deep Ellum (east of downtown), and lower Greenville Avenue.