So, while we are on the subject, let’s answer that question and others surrounding why the city named a road after him. As for the prostitutes, I guess that was just a matter of getting lucky.

Harry Hines was born in 1886 in Dallas County, a time when North Texas roads were little more than wagon ruts cut through Blackland prairie. He grew up in a world where travel was slow, unpredictable, and often impossible after a rain. The idea of a paved, all weather highway system did not exist yet. That world shaped him. It gave him a lifelong belief that Texas could not grow unless its roads improved.

Hines began his career as a businessman, working in real estate, construction, and civic development. He was not a politician in the traditional sense. He was a practical man who understood how infrastructure shaped communities. He served on local boards, worked with county officials, and built a reputation as someone who could get things done. His work brought him into contact with the people who were trying to modernize Dallas during the early twentieth century.

By the early 1930s, Texas was struggling with the Great Depression. The state needed leaders who could think beyond the crisis and plan for the future. Hines was appointed to the Texas Highway Commission during this period. It was the most important transportation position in the state, and he quickly became its dominant voice.

The Road Builder

Hines believed that Texas needed a unified highway system. He pushed for paved roads that could withstand weather and heavy use. He insisted on consistent numbering so that travelers could navigate the state without confusion. He traveled constantly, inspecting routes in person and meeting with local officials. He was known for being direct and demanding, but also for being fair. He wanted roads that worked, and he expected the same from the people who built them.

His influence was felt across the state. Under his leadership, Texas built hundreds of miles of paved highways. The work laid the foundation for the routes that would later become the Interstate system. Hines understood that roads were more than transportation. They were economic lifelines. They connected farms to markets, towns to cities, and Texas to the rest of the country.

A Dallas Ally

Dallas leaders recognized that Hines was essential to the city’s growth. They worked closely with him to improve the Dallas to Denton corridor, which would become one of the most important routes in North Texas (seriously!). Hines supported these efforts. He believed that Dallas was positioned to become a major transportation hub, and he wanted the state to invest in the region.

His support helped Dallas make a stronger case for hosting the Texas Centennial. When the state evaluated the competing bids, Dallas could point to ongoing improvements in its road network. It could show that the city was working closely with the Highway Commission. It could argue that visitors would be able to reach the Centennial grounds safely and efficiently.

The Honor

In 1936, the same year the Centennial opened at Fair Park, Dallas renamed Hi Line Road as Harry Hines Boulevard. The decision reflected the city’s gratitude. It acknowledged the role Hines played in modernizing the region’s transportation network. It also aligned Dallas with the man who had become the most influential voice in Texas highway planning.

The renaming was more than symbolic. It marked the beginning of a new era in Dallas transportation. Harry Hines Boulevard became a major north south corridor. It carried U. S. 77 for decades. It supported the growth of motor courts, diners, and commercial development. It became part of the story of how Dallas expanded and how the city adapted to the rise of automobile travel.

Later Years and Legacy

Hines served on the Texas Highway Commission for more than a decade. His tenure shaped the future of transportation in Texas. Many of the roads he championed later became parts of U. S. 77, U. S. 75, State Highway 114, State Highway 183, and Loop 12. His work influenced the early alignments that fed into the Interstate system.

He died in 1956, but his legacy lived on. Newspapers across Texas described him as the man who helped pull the state out of the mud and into the modern era. His name remains on one of Dallas’ most important corridors, a reminder of the role he played in shaping the city and the state.

Today, Harry Hines Boulevard carries the history of early Dallas highways, the rise of motor courts, and the civic pride that shaped the city in the 1930s. While not the most glorious streets in the city, it stands alongside the Art Deco buildings at Fair Park as a symbol of the Centennial moment when Dallas reinvented itself and embraced a modern future.

“It is only 89 here, but I was never more uncomfortable. I prefer Oklahoma dry heat.”

That single line captures the feel of a Dallas August before air conditioning was common. Eighty-nine degrees sounds gentle for late summer, but the humidity was the real force at work. Dallas in the 1940s still had wide open fields, creeks that held moisture, and long stretches of unpaved ground. After a rain, the air could turn heavy and still. Without the wind channels created by later freeways, the heat simply settled over the landscape. Even a mild day could feel like a steam bath.

Mildred was right. Oklahoma heat was hotter, but it was also drier. Dallas humidity made a modest temperature feel like something entirely different. Yet today most Dallasites would think an 89-degree day in late August to be most splendid! Especially after 109 degrees just 13-days earlier.

The Many Names of Harry Hines Road

The postcard places the Tower Hotel Courts at a crossroads that carried several identities over time.

“At the Circle on Hines Boulevard intersecting Highway 77, 183, 114 and Loop 12.”

That single sentence is a snapshot of Dallas’ road history.

Hi Line Road

Before the city renamed it, the corridor was known as Hi Line Road. It followed the railroad high line that paralleled it. Early county maps show it as a rural north south road that cut through farm tracts and the old Ware Estate.

Harry Hines Boulevard

Dallas renamed the road to honor Harry Hines, the Texas Highway Commissioner who pushed for modern road building. The name stuck, although the numbering changed more than once.

U. S. Highway 77

For decades, Harry Hines carried U. S. 77, the main north south highway through Dallas. Tourist courts, diners, and motor inns grew along it, including the Tower Hotel Courts. U. S. 77 was effectively decommissioned in Dallas in 1969, when Interstate 35E fully replaced it through the city.

But the number lingered in pieces elsewhere in Texas until the early 1990s.

State Highways 114 and 183, and Loop 12

As Dallas expanded, the intersection became a meeting point for several major routes. The postcard captures a moment when the roads were still recognizable, but the freeway era was already beginning to reshape the landscape.

As The Circle was never planned as a permanent fix, map makers overlooked it and the only reference I could find was through an odyssey of maps on TxDot’s Real Property Asset Map in their Right-of-Way files. It is an incomplete view of the almost constructed “Circle”.

The Circle That Once Defined the Intersection

The Circle mentioned on the postcard was a large rotary where Harry Hines, Loop 12, State Highway 114, and State Highway 183 all met. It was built in the early 1950s as a modern solution to growing traffic.

For a time, it worked well.
As Dallas grew, the Circle became a choke point.
By the late 1960s, the rotary was removed and replaced with the directional interchange that stands today.

By the early 1970s, when I remember seeing the giant neon sign for The Circle Inn, the Circle itself had already vanished. Its bright neon sign was standing on a rocky hill like a beacon that welcomed me home each time we passed it. I believe it was just as NW Highway descends to go under Old Denton. You know, it’s that area that likes to flood whenever we get heavy rain. It seemed huge to me, but keep in mind I was only in 2nd grade.

In my 7-year-old historian voice, I pointed out one day that there wasn’t a circle anywhere to be found. You see, I was already developing my smart-alecky tone, but my parents gave a simple-vague answer that they thought there used to be a circle there, but it was gone. The name survived long after the road feature was gone. As I recall it, there was a theatre that appeared to stand alone, and I wondered how it came to be.

Every time we would drive down Spur-482 from 183 and round that corner onto Loop 12/NW Highway I would gaze at that bright neon sign and imagine all the wonderful things that must have happened there to warrant such an amazing sign. I might have overshot on my expectations, just a tad.

The place shut down in late 2005 and by that time was in a miserable state. It was demolished the following year, but the sign was apparently purchased by DART and donated to a private collection. You see DART was building the Northwest Rail Line, which later became part of the Orange Line (get out your color wheel).

More about that some other time, as it turned out not to be the same hotel. It only took me 3 hours of research to find that out. Yay for me!

Curious readers will note that the left side of the property borders Hinton Dr. This street was standardized as Denton Drive and was influenced by the adjoining railroad corridor since it paralleled the line toward Denton County.

The Tower Hotel Courts: A Landmark That Disappeared

The Tower Hotel Courts opened around 1940 on land carved from the G. W. Ware Estate. It sat between the railroad and Harry Hines, just south of the future Circle. It was a classic motor court of its time, with rows of individual cabins, a central office, bright neon, and the promise of one hundred eight modern, air-conditioned rooms.

For travelers on U. S. 77, it was a welcome sight.

Its location, however, placed it directly in the path of Dallas highway expansion. When the state rebuilt the interchange for State Highways 114 and 183, the Tower Hotel Courts stood exactly where the new ramps needed to go. The property was acquired, the buildings were removed, and the site became part of the growing freeway system.

Today, part of the hotel’s footprint lies beneath the sweeping interchange of 114, 183, and Loop 12. Nothing remains of the hotel, but the postcard preserves a moment when the hotel was new, the Circle was a landmark, and Harry Hines was still a highway lined with tourist courts.

Just south of the area where NW Highway meets Spur 482 and beyond DART’s Orange line, you will find a new landmark which bears the name U-Haul at 9929 Harry Hines. It’s not a neon sign and but the place still bustles with activity.

A Postcard as a Time Machine

Mildred’s message captures a world that has vanished.
The Circle was still intact.
Harry Hines was still a major highway.
The Tower Hotel Courts was still a fresh addition to the roadside.
And Dallas was still a city of postcards, motor courts, and humid August evenings.

Who would have thought a simple postcard could reveal so much about our history? I sure didn’t!

The first 50 entries took 70 minutes to complete, which translates into nearly 24 hours of continuous work for the full set of names. To help streamline the process, the information has now been organized into an Excel file that arranges each name into the 3 to 4 rows used on the markers. This should significantly increase the pace of data entry, and with it, bring the project closer to completion.

Even with these improvements, entering the information will still take a few weeks. Once submitted, the headstones will move into a 3 to 6 month production timeline. Because each one is a custom size, they must be individually cut and polished before the sandblasting can begin.

Destiny is currently exploring whether the information can be submitted in batches of 100. If so, production could begin sooner, allowing these markers to take shape without delay. More updates will be shared as soon as that option becomes clear.

This is meticulous work, but it is meaningful work, and every step ensures that those laid to rest are honored with the dignity and accuracy they deserve.

Stay tuned for more updates coming soon!

My fascination with the past began long before I had words for it. As a kid, I would stop at the Marsh Family Cemetery in Farmers Branch, the small one at Rockmartin and Chaparral, every time I walked to and from school. I stood among those weathered headstones and wondered who the people were, how they lived, and what stories they carried with them. I visited that cemetery more times than any reasonable person should admit, and one day, in 3rd grade, I even knocked on the door of the Marsh family homestead just to ask about the cemetery and whether they were related to the names carved in stone. To their great credit, they were incredibly kind to a curious little kid.

Seven years later, I included that same homestead in an extra credit presentation for my history class. The place stayed with me, and I will take you there one day, but that is a rabbit hole for another time.

What Matters is This

My greatest passion is for history that can be seen, touched, and experienced. Even when a building no longer stands, I can visit the spot, feel the ground beneath my feet, and picture the world as it once was. Something about being physically present makes the past feel almost alive.

I have spent my entire life trying to understand this beautiful, complicated, heartbreaking, inspiring place called Dallas. And now, I feel ready to begin sharing its stories.

Dallas is a city of motion, always shifting, always reinventing itself. Not every change has been kind, not every step has been graceful, but the city has never stopped moving. And within that constant motion are the stories that matter most to me, the ones that belong to everyday people whose ordinary lives shaped an extraordinary, imperfect city.

Nothing brings me more joy than finding a small artifact from Dallas history, something humble and overlooked, and tracing its path through time. I follow each clue as far as it will go and let the object reveal the people, places, and moments connected to it. These items become windows into lives that deserve to be remembered.

My plan is simple. I will keep collecting pieces of Dallas history, researching them, and telling the stories they uncover. But once a story is told, I do not need to hold onto the item forever. Its purpose will have been fulfilled, and I want to make room for the next discovery waiting to speak.

Retail Space

So, I have secured space at the North Dallas Antique Mall where I can display and sell these collections that I have conserved and curated. , ready to face another century and ready to become part of someone else’s personal museum. I will include notes about their conservation and the story each item carries.

Journey Through History:
Where Dallas Becomes a Collection

My aim is to provide curated collections of at least 2-3 pieces that each augment the other to help bring a narrative to the items you are viewing. I lean heavily on our arts scene, local artist works, Dallasana, Texana & Americana. The airlines and railroads that helped shape us are also primary targets for the display. Primary targets are Braniff, American Airlines, TWA, Pan-am & Southwest. My hope is to provide a sounding board to provoke discussion through each item on display.

This is a vision that is just now coming into view, and you can say you saw it here first. There are still gaps in the collection and on the shelves, and I’m striving to keep them stocked. I have so much more to show you as we move forward and I couldn’t be more excited about it.

I don’t want to take over this blog by making it into QVC, So, I’ll only post once every week or so and I’ll share the items I’m working on and work to tell their stories. They will eventually end up at the antique mall, if they are not pre-claimed by one of our followers. If you see something you can’t live without, please message me directly

Visit my booth on “Avenue D at Boardwalk” in the North Dallas Antique Mall. I’m including photos of many of the items that are already on display to give you an idea of what to expect.

I had a copy of Breath! on the table in the TBRU Marketplace. It is the book created for the Chorales twenty fifth anniversary, filled with every name that shaped those first decades.

A first timer at TBRU (Texas Bear Round Up), visiting from Oklahoma City, stopped when he saw it. He told me that while going through his father’s estate, he found a single record showing that his father had once played piano with the Chorale. He had always suspected his father was gay, but they never discussed it either way.

was one of those quiet suspicions that families carry without ever speaking aloud.

I told him we could find out. At the time this book was printed in 2004, the Chorale had lost some 100 members to the plaque of AIDS. I opened the book to the inside cover where every member from those twenty-five years is listed. He leaned in, searching line by line, almost afraid to hope.

Then he saw it. His father’s name.

His finger suddenly froze along the back inside cover; he closed the book gently and pulled it into his chest like something precious he had been missing for years. He held it in a tight bear hug, eyes shining, right on the edge of tears. I joined him, because I have a strict rule that no one cries alone in my presence. It felt like watching a door open inside someone. A door he thought would stay locked forever.

We shared that moment of revelation together, which is something I never expected for my very first vendor market for the Dallas history brand that I’m creating.

We’ve exchanged info and I’m reaching out to the members of the Turtle Creek Chorale to see if there are any active members that would have worked with Keith Whitmore.

If you have any memories of Keith, it would be the honor of my life to introduce you to his son, who also plays piano and is also a proud gay man.

I am determined to help connect him with his father on a plane that couldn’t happen in the living years.

It is stories like this that I wish to uncover as part of my work on Dallas Rediscovered. I’m still evolving the ideas on how I want to run this endeavor. I respond to history that I can see and touch. Proximity is of utmost importance to me, and I plan to procure things that will help me tell the story of Dallas! One story at a time.

While in my possession, I will undergo conservation efforts to protect the artifacts from decay and at times rescue them from the brink. In most cases, once I’ve told their story I no longer need the item, so to help keep me from becoming a hoarder, I plan to release those items back into circulation as rejuvenated works of art. I don’t intend to push a sales angle on anyone, but if a piece speaks to you reach out to me privately and we can work out the terms of transfer.

What began at 9:00 a.m. on March 4 as a special-called meeting to consider the future of City Hall ended in a decision that moved Dallas closer to abandoning its most iconic civic building and further from the will of its residents.

This was not governance.

This was treason in the extreme and the man leading the storm on City Hall was our most unpopular mayor Eric Johnson. He’s been railroading this decision through the council since the beginning. He doesn’t seem to understand that he should be working for all the people of Dallas and not just his billionaire friends.

But the most appalling thing to me was that my own council person Gay Donnell Willis supported this treason. Rest assured that she will never garner my vote again.

A Vote Forced Through Under Manufactured Urgency

The push for this vote did not arise from thoughtful deliberation. It was the product of an orchestrated, rapid-fire process initiated by Mayor Eric Johnson, who set the March 4 special meeting explicitly to force a vote on a resolution directing the City Manager to begin relocating core city operations and to explore redevelopment of the current City Hall site. [fox4news.com]

City staff were to be ordered to:

• Move 311, 911, and emergency operations to new government facilities “as quickly as possible.” [fox4news.com]

• Investigate relocation options for all remaining City Hall personnel.

• Pursue redevelopment concepts, effectively placing the I.M. Pei‑designed landmark on a path toward displacement. [fox4news.com]

Residents recognized immediately what was happening. They filled the chamber days earlier, insisting the process was rushed, opaque, and misaligned with the city’s democratic obligations. Their frustration was not speculative; it emerged from the city’s own figures and timeline.

The Billion-Dollar Boogeyman

At the center of the push was a cost estimate claiming that keeping the current building operational for another twenty years would require $906 million to $1.4 billion in repairs and upgrades. [fox4news.com]

But that figure has been challenged repeatedly:

• Preservationists and architects questioned the validity of the analysis, calling the report inadequate, misleading, and not independent. [dallasobserver.com]

• Others noted that the estimate conflated urgent repairs with modernization enhancements and other optional upgrades.

• Past assessments painted a dramatically different picture - including one estimating only $37–$39 million in required repairs. [newsbreak.com]

Still, nine Council members embraced the highest possible number without interrogating its assumptions. They allowed fear, not facts, to guide a decision of historic consequence.

The Most Personal Disappointment: Council Member Gay Donnell Willis

My greatest disappointment lies with Council Member Gay Donnell Willis.

In prior discussions, Willis publicly emphasized that City Hall would always remain a welcoming civic space with an open plaza, regardless of its location. It was a reassuring sentiment from a representative entrusted with protecting the public’s access to its own government. [nbcdfw.com]

Yet when the defining moment arrived in the pre-dawn hours of March 5, she voted in favor of the resolution - a vote that, by its very nature, accelerates the displacement of civic life from the building that has symbolized Dallas’ democratic identity for nearly fifty years.

She did not slow the process.
She did not question the timeline.
She did not defend the building or the people who spoke passionately in its defense.
She did not listen to the 90% plus of her constituents that told her to “Save City Hall!”
She did not stand up for what was right.

The disappointment is justified.

A Decision Taken After the Public Could No Longer Watch

If the proposal itself was troubling, the timing of the vote was worse.
By pushing deliberations deep into the night and ultimately into the next day, the Council guaranteed that only the most dedicated observers could follow the proceedings. The vast majority of residents, including those who had taken time to show up and speak earlier in the week, had no realistic ability to witness the conclusion. Fortunately, I’m a night owl.

A democracy cannot function when the most consequential decisions are finalized after midnight, under exhaustion and diminishing public visibility.

What Dallas Stands to Lose

This vote is more than a question of HVAC systems and leaking roofs. What is at stake is:

• A civic landmark: One of the most distinctive buildings in Dallas, designed by I.M. Pei and featured prominently in the city’s cultural history. [newsbreak.com]

• A public asset already paid for: A building that belongs to the people, not to developers or speculators. [fox4news.com]

• Democratic space itself: The chambers, plaza, and public areas that define how Dallas sees itself, assembles, and participates in its own governance.

• Continuity and identity: Once City Hall is moved, the symbolic and practical center of Dallas fractures.

Opponents of the proposal made this clear when they spoke during earlier hearings, with residents calling the process “corruption,” “insulting,” and a profound betrayal of public trust. [fox4news.com]

The Fight Is Not Over

Although the 9–6 vote moves Dallas closer to abandoning the current City Hall, it is not final. There remain pathways for preservation:

• The Landmark Designation Committee has already begun exploring a historic designation, a move that could complicate efforts to demolish or radically alter the structure. [newsbreak.com]

• Further public pressure can demand transparent, phased repair assessments rather than the all-or-nothing framing presented thus far.

• Civic organizations, architects, and residents can organize to challenge the redevelopment narrative and defend the building “paid for by the people for the people.”

The story of Dallas City Hall is not finished.
But the events of March 4–5 will remain a stain on the city’s reputation.

Conclusion: A Breach of Trust That Will Not Be Forgotten

The early-morning vote was not responsible leadership.
It was a rushed and reckless breach of the public trust, carried out after an exhausting sixteen-hour session that left little room for accountability.

Dallas deserves better.
Dallas deserves transparency.
Dallas deserves representatives who are willing to stand firm in the face of political pressure and procedural manipulation.

And Dallas will remember who stood for the people -
and who stood against them.

Here is the link in case you don’t have time to read the rest of this message: CONTACT YOUR COUNCIL MEMBER NOW

Key Takeaways:
Wednesday, March 4 at 9am the City Council will meet to be briefed on recommendations from Finance Committee and Economic Development. At the direction of Mayor Eric Johnson, Council will vote to continue to process of abandoning Dallas City Hall.

Your public presence and input matters. We cannot slow or stop this process without you.

A Message from the Executive Director of Preservation Dallas

City Hall must be saved.

Not just because it was built in 1978.

Not just because it was designed by I.M. Pei.

Not just because of its history.

Not just because of its significance.

Not just because of nostalgia.

Not just because it appeared in a famous movie.

Not even because it stands as a symbol of government transparency.

City Hall must be saved because this is, plainly put, a boondoggle.

The owners of the Dallas Mavericks want our City Hall. Plain and simple. This has never truly been a conversation about repairing the building or addressing deferred maintenance. There is no meaningful negotiation over costs, no independent second opinion on the details. The speed of this process is meant to meet the needs of the Mavericks, not the needs of downtown, not the needs of the people, or even the needs of Dallas itself.

As a result, Dallas has become afraid. Afraid of losing opportunities, afraid of lost revenue, afraid of losing more downtown businesses, and, most of all, afraid of losing the Mavericks. A growing chorus of voices now loudly proclaims the need to invest in the southern portion of Downtown Dallas and that City Hall no longer serves its intended purpose.

But what is City Hall’s “intended purpose”? Was it intended to be handed over to billionaire interests?

If City Hall is sold to the Mavericks, the deal could become one of the most expensive decisions in our city’s history. Not only will we have to bear the cost of relocating City of Dallas operations and securing a new City Hall, but you can bet we will be paying to subsidize a new stadium, too. Even more concerning, based on Dallas history, we will likely be circling back to this same issue in 25 years when the new, shiny arena is somehow no longer suited to the future owners of our sports team and our lease is up on the new corporate compound that may be our future City Hall.

Promises of future revenue, increased “activation,” or economic impact do not erase what we will have to pay, and it is wholly dependent on factors outside of our control: the market, the economy, and frankly - how well the Mavericks perform.

And you’ve already seen how much Dallas fears losing.

With a majority of City Council too afraid to say “no” to the Mavs, we must rely on you, the people of Dallas.

After all, it is your building. Your say. Your city.

Sarah Crain
Executive Director
Preservation Dallas

So, what can you do about it?

Wednesday, March 4, City Council will meet to be briefed on recommendations from Finance Committee and Economic Development. At the direction of Mayor Eric Johnson, Council will vote to continue to process of abandoning Dallas City Hall.

Your public presence and input matters. We cannot slow or stop this process without you.

Saving Dallas City Hall

As you know, Preservation Dallas is working alongside a coalition of citizens and organizations in an urgent effort to save I.M. Pei’s 1978 City Hall.

Our most important request of membership is to ACT NOW to contact your council member directly. Using this link, it takes just 30 seconds!

CONTACT YOUR COUNCIL MEMBER NOW

Here are a few more steps you can take to really make a difference:

Share our ACT NOW link with your networks – via email, text, and social media. We’re in the best position to talk about the issue and engage more citizens in the cause.

Follow us on Facebook, Instagram, and Tiktok to stay apprised of upcoming events. Remember, your engagement with social media (e.g. likes, shares, comments) helps get the message in front of more citizens.

Pick up a yard sign from our office, 2922 Swiss Avenue, between 10am-2pm Monday through Thursday (they are going fast)!

Check-out the new SaveDallasCityHall.com, where you can find information about this iconic building, the Council’s rushed timeline, recent media coverage, and more.

Call your council member’s office to ask for a meeting to discuss your concerns, especially if you have a relationship with them.

Thank you for your advocacy. Together, we can flood the council with our voices of reason – and ensure this decision is based upon transparency, solid facts, & careful consideration.

CONTACT YOUR COUNCIL MEMBER NOW

If you have any further questions please visit

www.preservationdallas.org/contact

Then Randolph spoke, his voice low. “I stopped by Parkland today,” he said, eyes fixed on the flame. “To see Uncle Will.”

Armenda’s fork paused mid-air. “How is he?”

Randolph shook his head slowly. “Not good. They’ve got him in isolation now. You should’ve seen the precautions! They don’t let you near a man with this sickness without a mask. Just a strip of gauze tied across my mouth, but it’s something. I kept my distance, didn’t touch a thing. The nurse cracked the window wide open so the air could move. They say that’s the only way to keep the germs from hanging in the room.”

He pushed his plate away, hands trembling slightly. “I washed my hands till they burned before I left. Didn’t dare take a sip of water while I was there. Everything he touched, everything in that room… it’s dangerous. This disease! It floats in the air when he coughs. You breathe it in, and it settles deep in your lungs. That’s how it starts.”

Armenda reached for his hand, her eyes wide with worry. Randolph squeezed back gently. “I had to see him,” he whispered. “But Lord, I pray I didn’t bring anything home.”

He leaned back, staring at the candle as if it held answers. “They say it’s a slow march. It started with pneumonia last summer, then toxemia and his pleural effusion on New Year’s Day. Since then, nothing but downhill. I feel so helpless, Armenda. He was more of a father to me than my own daddy. We all came here from Paris thinking Dallas was our bright future. Now…” His voice cracked. “Now I’m watching him slip away.”

The Call

Two days later, Valentine’s warmth had faded into a gray February morning. Randolph clocked in at the Sears building on Lamar Street. It was a sprawling 1.5 million square foot monument to commerce just South of Downtown Dallas. He was barely settled when his boss approached. “Phone call for you,” the man said, his tone clipped.

Randolph’s stomach tightened. He walked the long corridors slowly, dread pressing down with every step. At the switchboard, he lifted the receiver, his voice barely a whisper. “This is Randolph.”

The words that followed shattered him. A Parkland orderly delivered the news in a single, merciless sentence: Will was gone.

Randolph fell to his knees, sobbing, the sound swallowed by the hum of machinery and footsteps. His world had collapsed, but there was no time for grief. Jobs were scarce, and his straw boss wasn’t known for mercy. He wiped his face, stood up, and finished his shift hollowed out by loss.

That night, he walked to his uncle’s home at 1819 Lincoln Street to gather what little remained before it was discarded. Among the belongings, he found a photograph of the two of them at a church barbecue back in Paris, TX. It was a moment of joy frozen in time. He tucked it into his coat and began the long walk back to the prestigious address of 3736 Stanford Avenue, in University Park, more than an hour on foot. When he arrived, he didn’t walk through the front door, but through the alley and into the servants’ quarters.

Dallas was tightly segregated at this time, and he would never be allowed to enter through the front door of this home. That was for the white white people. Instead, he was tucked into the servants’ quarters buried deep behind a grand estate. His wife, Armenda, was a domestic for the family that owned the property. Their apartment didn’t have running water or electricity. It wasn’t much, but it was theirs, and in the depths of the Depression, that counted for something.

Exhausted and late for dinner Randolph finally came through the door. Armenda saw the bundle in his arms and instantly knew what happened. She rushed to him, and as he tried to explain, he pulled out the photo and dissolved into tears.

The Burial

Will Dawkins had been the first in their family born free. His life deserved dignity. But dignity was hard to come by in 1932. Plans for Mount Auburn Cemetery fell through. Forest Lawn was considered, then abandoned. In the end, there was no choice but the pauper’s cemetery. Most were buried there the same day they died. Will waited three days, a measure of the family’s anguish and torture at not being able to provide funds for his burial.

On February 16, Randolph and Armenda traveled far north of town to lay him to rest. The place was called Letot, TX. The City & County of Dallas had banded together to purchase this new tract of land that would house their needs for decades to come. Randolph remarked to the grave digger, “I thought this was a cemetery.” To which the reply came, “It is now.” Will was the very first burial at Dallas City Cemetery.

The land was pristine, acres of open country. Standing at the edge of the grave, Randolph clutched the photograph in his coat pocket, the last tangible piece of a man who had shaped his life. The wind swept across the fields, carrying with it the silence of things left unsaid.

This wasn’t the ending they dreamed of when they left Paris, TX for Dallas. But in that moment, with Armenda’s hand in his, Randolph vowed to keep Will’s memory alive. Because even in the shadow of despair, love endures.

Will Dawkins was born in 1888 to a freedman named Nathan who was just 12 at the time the Civil War ended. The parents fled the plantations of South Carolina and brought Samuel (15), Nathan (12) and, Roda (8) to Paris, TX to start a new life. There they gave birth to at least 5 more children: Harriett, Sanford, Rachel, Clarksville & Lewis. It was in Paris that they were finally able to legally wed in 1873.

Note: The houses on Lincoln and Stanford no longer stand.

Today marks a turning point! Not just for a forgotten cemetery in Northwest Dallas, but for the 2,054 people who were laid to rest there without the dignity of a lasting marker. After years of research, advocacy, and quiet persistence, the City of Dallas has released $90,000 to help fund the purchase of 1,000 new headstones for Dallas City Cemetery, also known as the Dallas Pauper’s Cemetery. They were matching the $50,000 of private donations already allocated to the effort.

A Personal Note

Today also happens to be my birthday, and I can’t imagine a better gift than this. After years of research, advocacy, and quiet determination, to receive the funding that will finally give 1,000 people their names back feels like the most meaningful birthday present I could ever receive. It’s a reminder that history isn’t just something we study; it’s something we can change.

As soon as the funds clear my bank, they will be transferred directly to Calvary Hill Cemetery, fulfilling the contract I signed on September 30, 2025. On that same day, I will deliver the list of the 1,000 individuals whose stories will finally be anchored to the ground where they rest.

And then the work begins.

While the markers are being created, I’ll be sharing regular stories about the cemetery’s permanent residents — the people whose lives, struggles, and final days shaped the early 20th‑century city we inherited. They deserve to be known. They deserve to be remembered.

A Cemetery That Tells the Story of a City

They say there are a million stories in the naked city. Dallas City Cemetery is no exception. In fact, it may be one of the most concentrated archives of human experience in the entire county.

A staggering 84% of all burials occurred in the cemetery’s first decade, from 1932 to 1942 — years defined by the Great Depression, widespread poverty, and the absence of modern medical care. As prenatal care progressed, antibiotics emerged, and tuberculosis treatments improved, the burial rate dropped sharply. The cemetery’s population is a demographic snapshot of a city in crisis, then in transition.

Most Common Places of Death

• 1,002 – Parkland Hospital/Woodlawn (including 278 stillborn)

• 177 – Bradford Memorial Hospital

• 116 – Hutchins Convalescent Home

• 75 – St. Paul

• 43 – Baylor Hospital

• 21 – Hope Cottage

These institutions cared for the city’s poorest, sickest, and most vulnerable residents, and their records form the backbone of this cemetery’s story.

Unnatural Deaths

Among the 2,054 burials, 171 were attributed to external or unnatural causes, a sobering reminder of the dangers of early‑20th‑century urban life.

• Homicide: 24

• Suicide: 18

• Drowning: 8

• Burns: 29

• Poisoning: 16

• Train/Railroad incidents: 19

• Explicitly “Accidental”: 9

• Stab/Knife wounds: 9

• Hanging/Strangulation: 7

• Exposure: 5

• Gun-related (subset): 31

Each number represents a life cut short, often violently or tragically — and until now, often anonymously.

What Comes Next

The die is cast, but the story is still unfolding.

Over the coming months, as the markers are carved and prepared, I’ll be sharing the histories of the people who will soon have their names restored to the landscape. Some stories will be heartbreaking. Some will be surprising. Many will challenge assumptions about poverty, race, illness, and survival in Dallas during the hardest years of the 20th century.

But all of them will remind us why this work matters.

A cemetery is not just a place of burial. It is a record of a community’s values — and for too long, Dallas allowed this one to fade into obscurity. Today, with this funding, with these markers, and with this renewed commitment to remembrance, we take a step toward correcting that.

Alea iacta est.
The die is cast.
And the work of restoration — of memory, of dignity, of history — moves forward.

I am immensely humbled by this moment and I’m flipping back and forth between the gravity of what we are about to do and the joy of being able to finally roll up my sleeves and get to work!

Please subscribe to this blog so that we can enjoy this journey together!

For posterity’s sake, I’m reposting the article in case the link stops working someday. I was surprised it still worked when I went to it today, because it was almost 6 years ago.

Original Article:

‘No one cared about them in life or death’: Why one man fights to restore Dallas’ old paupers cemetery

Until Dan Babb came along, no one even knew how many people are buried there (2,053, to be exact)

Robert Wilonsky Editorial columnist, Dallas Morning News, Dec 25, 2019

Vernon Johnson’s grave marker is wrong. First, because that is not Vernon Johnson buried beneath it.

Buried here is the infant daughter of Vernon Johnson and Virgie Chandler, who once lived on South Austin Street in the Cedars. The marker also says this child was born Dec. 25, 1932, and died the same day. But that is not what happened. The girl was actually born at 10:30 p.m. Christmas Eve, at Parkland Hospital, and died three hours later, at 1:40 Christmas morning.

“Born premature,” said Dan Babb. I was astounded that a 54-year-old man raised in northwest Dallas would know even a single thing about a child born 87 years ago who lived for 190 minutes, much less her very brief life’s story.

The child’s mother was just 6½ months along when the baby was born, Babb said as we knelt in the dirt and grass and stared at faded letters stamped into a thin piece of metal nailed to a crumbling concrete block. “Remember,” he said, “this was during the Depression.” And, during an outbreak of illnesses that killed hundreds of children here in the 1930s.

“This cemetery,” Babb said, “speaks to a lot of different things.”

This cemetery is the old pauper’s cemetery, buried, as it were, inside a warehouse district off Walnut Hill Lane near Denton Drive. And here, it’s not at all uncommon to find markers with wrong or misspelled names or inaccurate dates of birth and death. That is, when you can find the markers at all.

The Dallas City Cemetery, it’s called on Google Maps, a rectangle of quiet green surrounded on all sides by motor and moving and construction companies. It’s seemingly impossible to find — only a small white sign marks the entrance — and difficult to access down the end of a narrow white-dirt road that ends in 3 acres of what looks like pastureland.

There once was a large metal sign over this land that read “DALLAS CITY CEMETERY,” but it appears to have been thrown away. Part of the fencing has vanished. And an adjacent alleyway is overgrown and causes the land to flood, which is why part of the ground is muddy and, often, underwater — the corner where 256 infants who died in 1932 and 1933 are buried.

Babb says there are 2,053 people buried here, off Shady Trail Drive. And you would never know it, save for 1,000 or so remaining markers — the tintype nailed to concrete — that have survived the devastation wrought by erosion and lawnmowers.

“Might as well be a Civil War battlefield,” Babb, a graduate of W.T. White High School, said as we scanned the vista, unable to see a single marker from the narrow entrance. “Nothing.”

The city bought this burial ground from Forest Lawn Cemetery, nearby on Walnut Hill and Harry Hines Boulevard, in the early 1930s, when this part of the city was unincorporated and called Letot, and Dallas needed virgin land in which to bury the dead claimed by illnesses born of “economic distress,” as this newspaper put it then. Dallas made it a “special use park” in 1968, and stopped burying people here eight years later. In the summer of 1978, City Hall sold off 10 unused acres to the industrial uses that now crowd around it.

Every now and then, a story like this one will be told about the city’s abandoned dead and the flooding and how awful that is, because it is awful. But its existence remains unknown to most. I paid my first visit just last week, drawn by the small, strange red-and-white sign I noticed out the corner of my eye while touring the October tornado’s devastation along Shady Trail.

The internet sent me to Babb’s website, where he has begun chronicling tales of the dead buried without a penny or family. I read there, too of his passion to restore the place — “this time piece of Dallas’ history,” he writes. I called Babb on Tuesday night, and he offered to meet me there Wednesday morning, at the place that consumes most of his spare time when he’s not working at a software company.

Babb, a genealogist by hobby, calls it an obsession. “My husband,” he said, “calls it an addiction.”

But why this place, this almost abandoned potters field?

“I don’t know,” he said. “I just walked in and was like, ‘Somebody needs to do something about this,’ and I set about doing it. I honestly never thought it was going to be this much work. Maybe I’m a little crazy. But this is my cemetery.” He paused, grinned. “Well, no one is fighting me for it right now, anyway.”

For his diligence, we should be grateful; so, too, the relatives of the forgotten and misidentified dead often relegated to this last-chance resting place by family members and “uncaring people,” as its former caretaker told this newspaper in 1977. They would otherwise have been erased from history had Babb not found this place three years ago and made it his cause and calling.

Since he became the cemetery’s unofficial caretaker, he and a small army of volunteers have scoured the grounds with metal detectors to find nameplates shorn off by weather and groundskeepers. They have pored through endless death certificates and maps to match names and correct what coroners and careless workers got wrong — or ignored altogether — when no one was paying attention.

Babb has posted to the Find a Grave website more than 1,000 photos of the markers that do remain. And, as a result, he has even reunited a handful of the living with the dead who have not been visited since they were covered with dirt decades ago.

“It’s amazing what Dan is doing,” said Omar Narvaez, the Dallas City Council member whose West Dallas district stretches into this part of the northwest. “But there are people for whom this is important, meaningful, powerful. Honoring those who have passed is how we secure our history and our future.”

Narvaez knew nothing of this land until Babb introduced it to him three years ago. When he first saw the cemetery, he said this week, it was “a big surprise.” And, he said, “there was some shock — how did we let something like this go into such disrepair?”

In the 1970s, this was one of a handful of abandoned cemeteries that fell to the Park and Recreation Department’s care; staff estimates maybe $6,000 is spent here annually, about what City Hall spends each year on the rotting Reverchon Park baseball field. In recent days, parks staff pulverized a tree stump in the cemetery’s floodplain, but even without recent rains the infants’ graves still lie far, far below the mud and stagnant water.

Oscar Carmona, a longtime assistant parks director about to decamp for the top job in Raleigh, N.C., said this week that there was a recent meeting with parks, Dallas Water Utilities and Public Works to discuss finally solving the flooding problem that dates to at least 2004. But that work stalled out — why, Carmona can’t say. Miscommunication, perhaps.

“Or maybe someone was daydreaming during that meeting,” he said.“This is a process that has taken too long, in my opinion, especially since we have a volunteer willing to be a caretaker or steward,” said Carmona with the bluntness of someone walking out the door. “I hate that the city is making him wait while we get our stuff together. I would like this cemetery to be a classroom into the history of Dallas. And I would like for people to say Dallas takes care of its past.”

Babb has plans for this paupers cemetery — and a price tag. He would like to add to each gravesite a new marker — a black marble brick with the deceased’s correct name and dates of birth and death, for starters. Such an effort would cost around $40,000, and he has already raised about one-third of that through quiet, limited efforts.

“It is my hope to turn this back into a place of rest,” Babb said as we walked the cemetery. “Right now, I feel it’s a place of torture.”

“Torture?” I asked. “What do you mean?”

“Well, rich or poor, everyone wants to have peace in the afterlife,” he said. “Having your grave flooded nine months out of the year is not peaceful. Having your loved ones unable to find you is not peaceful. It’s a tragedy not just that they died in poverty, but that no one cared about them in life, no one cared about them in death and no one has cared about them since.”

No, not until now.

By Robert Wilonsky

Robert Wilonsky is Dallas Morning News editorial columnist.

Such is now the case with the Iconic Dallas City Hall, built by I.M. Pei, who has a total of 5 projects in this city. Dallas boasts proud ownership of more of Pei’s structures than any city on the planet, save New York City, which has 6. Pei passed away in 2019, so there won’t be any more coming forth.

The original construction cost of Dallas City Hall, completed in 1978, was about $70 million (or $330 million today). With repair estimates already ranging higher than the building’s cost, the net effect is that the building is now effectively totaled.

This pattern spans iconic buildings, public venues, and basic infrastructure, often drawing public ire when beloved or critical assets fall apart. A recent estimate of deferred maintenance for the city is $17 billion. But I guess that number just rose to $17.345 billion.

I should also explain that planning began for the current City Hall in 1964 as a response to the Kennedy Assassination in an effort to modernize Dallas’ image & infrastructure. At the time the seat of our city government was at what we call the Municipal Building, which was the scene where Jack Ruby shot Lee Harvey Oswald. So, its time on postcards was drawing to a close.

A Back Story

There is an undercurrent for this story to me that is personal. The nexus for this blog and my love of local history dates to an extra credit project I did in 11^th grade American History class at W.T. White High School. I received permission to use local history so I could do a visual presentation, having done research on the ground and taken pictures myself. I was also able to use the Dallas and Farmers Branch Public Libraries. At the Dallas Public Library, I found a book by the name of Dallas Rediscovered, by Ian MacDonald. It was published by the Dallas Historical Society, who currently occupies the Hall of State building at Fair Park.

This book electrified me. The problem with Dallas not respecting its old buildings was on full display in 1978 when the book was published. On each page, a property was featured using an old photograph. A short history was added and then and then the gruesome truth about its fate lay in the captions. I was aghast that most of the buildings had been torn down, only to have a vacant lot or a convenience store replace it. It was, and still is, beyond tragic.

That book still electrifies me to this very day, and its name serves as the title of this blog, for that very reason. I hope someday to work with the Dallas Historical Society to put out Part II, along with a second printing of the original. But I digress.

By the time I made my presentation, using an Opaque Projector (remember those?), I was all in! I told a joke to highlight the problem. Humor is my way of coping. I prefer laughter over tears. The joke went like this:

Q: What is a 30-year-old building in Dallas?
A: Marked for demolition!

The Pattern of underfunding and neglect

Below are several examples of how this systemic underfunding has plagued Dallas for more than 100 years. It starts with a case study on Parkland Hospital and is followed by several recent examples of the same pattern of neglect and underfunding.

Old Parkland Memorial Hospital (1954–2023)

On Harry Hines Boulevard

Significance:
This hospital was where President John F. Kennedy was pronounced dead in 1963, making it a site of national historical importance. It served Dallas for over six decades. I should note that since 1954 Dallas County assumed control over Parkland Hospital, ending shared governance with the City of Dallas which had been in place prior to this date. However, the fate of the hospital remained the same.

Deferred Maintenance & Demolition:
After the new Parkland Hospital opened in 2015, the old facility was left largely unused. By 2022, it had deteriorated severely, with obsolete systems and unrepairable infrastructure. Officials opted for phased demolition, completed in 2023. No attempt was made to save the historic entrance where the official public announcement of John F. Kennedy’s death was made. The operating room was also lost.

Public Reaction:
The decision sparked debate, especially since the building was never granted historical landmark status. Former staff and preservationists expressed sadness over the loss of a site with deep historical resonance. Officials defended the move as a cost-saving necessity.

Old Old Parkland Memorial Hospital (1913–1954)

aka The Red Brick Parkland and until 2015 aptly named “Old Parkland”

Significance:
This structure is located at Oak Lawn and Maple and is deemed “Old Parkland Hospital”, which was true at the time of its rescue in 2006. This hospital still stands, despite decades of neglect, that finally ended with the purchase by Crow Holdings who has restored the buildings at great expense and uses it as their headquarters. After the demolition of its successor, this is the only “Old” Parkland building still in existence.

Deferred Maintenance:
The hospital, built in 1913, was considered obsolete by the 1950s. Despite expansions in the 1930s—including new wings, a psychiatric ward, and a venereal disease clinic—the facility could no longer meet the demands of a growing city or modern medical standards.

Overcrowding and Expansion Needs:
By the early 1950s, Dallas’s population and healthcare needs had outgrown the old hospital. The site was too small and constrained to accommodate further expansion. The city and county opted to build a new Parkland Hospital, on Harry Hines, a mile away to better serve the community and support the newly formed Southwestern Medical College, which had been using the old hospital for clinical teaching.

Shift in Medical Education and Services:
The old hospital had become a hub for chronic care, tuberculosis treatment, and psychiatric services, but it lacked the infrastructure for advanced medical education and acute care. The move to a new facility aligned with Dallas’s ambition to become a center for academic medicine and research, especially with the growth of UT Southwestern Medical Center.

Post-Abandonment Use and Decline:

After the hospital relocated in 1954, the old building continued to serve various purposes, including housing long-term patients and later functioning as a low-security jail. However, it eventually fell into disrepair and vandalism, with only partial renovation attempts until it was left vacant for years.

A Rare Rescue:
This building was spared the wrecking ball, due to extensive renovations and rehabilitation by Crow Holdings which uses it as their headquarters. In 2006, Crow Holdings purchased the property and began a $300 million transformation into a private business campus. The redevelopment preserved the historic architecture while adding new office space, turning the site into one of Dallas’s most exclusive commercial addresses.

Old Old Old Parkland Memorial Hospital (1894–1913)

aka, the Wooden Parkland or the Original Parkland

Significance:
This was the original Parkland hospital that was made of wood and the nickname the Wooden Parkland is used to differentiate it from its successor on the same plot of land. It was located on a 17-acre tract that was originally intended as a City Park, hence the name Parkland.

Outdated facilities & Demolition:
Replaced Due to Overcrowding and Modernization Needs. By the early 20th century, Dallas’s population growth and medical demands had outpaced the capabilities of the wooden hospital. A meningitis epidemic in 1911 underscored the need for better facilities, prompting the construction of a brick hospital in 1913 on the same site. This original set of buildings lasted only 19 years.

Fair Park (1936–Present)

Significance:
Fair Park is home to Art Deco landmarks, museums, the Cotton Bowl, and the State Fair of Texas. It was the site of the 1936 Texas Centennial Exposition and is considered a cultural treasure.

Deferred Maintenance & Risk of Demolition:
Decades of neglect led to crumbling facades, non-functional fountains, and leaky roofs. The Hall of State suffered millions in damage during the 2021 winter storm due to aging infrastructure. Without intervention, some structures faced potential demolition. This massive complex is expensive to maintain and many efforts to improve the situation have ended in failure. One recent success story is the recent completion of extensive Cotton Bowl improvements to bring the stadium up to modern standards.

Public Reaction:
Outrage grew as images of decay surfaced. Preservationists and park officials condemned the neglect, calling it a betrayal of Dallas’s heritage. A scandal erupted in 2024–25 over mismanagement of funds by a private partner tasked with upkeep. Make some popcorn, because this battle is far from over!

Reunion Arena (1980–2009)

Significance:
Reunion Arena was a city-owned indoor venue that hosted the Dallas Mavericks (NBA), Dallas Stars (NHL), major concerts, and the 1984 Republican National Convention. It was a central hub for sports and entertainment in Dallas.

Deferred Maintenance & Demolition:
By the early 2000s, the arena was losing money after its major tenants relocated. In 2008, the city voted unanimously to demolish the 28-year-old facility, citing the high cost of upkeep and lack of viable reuse plans. Demolition was completed in 2009.

Public Reaction:
While some residents mourned the loss of a beloved venue, most accepted the decision as fiscally necessary. Critics pointed out the city had no proactive plan to repurpose the site, and millions were spent maintaining an empty building before demolition.

It’s not just buildings anymore!

City Streets & Roads

Significance:
Dallas maintains over 11,000 lane-miles of roads, essential for mobility, commerce, and emergency services.

Deferred Maintenance & Impact:
The city has a $7 billion street repair backlog. Many roads went decades without repaving, leading to potholes and structural failures. Some bridges became unsafe and required full replacement.

Public Reaction:
Nearly half of Dallas residents rated street maintenance as “poor” in a 2024 survey. Complaints about vehicle damage and unsafe conditions are widespread. Neighborhood groups have protested the slow pace of repairs and demanded increased funding.

Traffic Signals & Street Lights

Significance:
These systems are vital for traffic safety and urban functionality.

Deferred Maintenance & Impact:
Over half of Dallas’s traffic signals are more than 40 years old. After the 2019 tornado, FEMA refused to fund modern replacements, not covering outdated equipment. Some intersections had temporary signals for over four years. The City had to foot the bill for over $30 billion in damages, because they weren’t conducting regular updates of our infrastructure.

Public Reaction:
Residents voiced frustration over prolonged outages and safety risks. Officials acknowledged the absurdity of maintaining obsolete systems. The situation became a symbol of bureaucratic failure and infrastructure neglect.

Call to Action:

In each case above, deferred maintenance snowballed over many years, eventually making the cost or feasibility of rehabilitation prohibitive. By the time the city or county took action, options were limited to either an expensive overhaul or teardown, often the latter. This trend isn’t new – it stretches back for 100+ years and continues to this today.

We need to stop this pattern in its tracks by updating the City’s charter so that maintenance cannot be deferred. If you don’t take your car in for maintenance, it will decline more rapidly and result in far larger charges in the future. It’s that simple. Say “NO” to deferred maintenance.

The writing I see on the wall, is that the American Airlines Center at Victory Plaza will become the next neglected building as the Mavs plan their exit in 2031. Otherwise, my prediction is that by 2041, we will face this same dilemma, and this cherished landmark will face the wrecking ball with everyone shrugging their shoulders and saying there is nothing more we could do.

The “new” Parkland Hospital will eventually suffer this fate and within months of opening was already overcrowded, despite the fact that it was intended to last for decades.

But as for Dallas City Hall, if we MUST now lose this architectural wonder, I say that our price tag should be $17.345 billion. They want it for a casino, let’s face it, and can easily make it up. Otherwise, they can go fleece some other city with their team as a dangling carrot. I’m sure Arlington is happy to give away the store, as they always are. We can use that money to catch the city up on deferred maintenance and break the cycle.

Bibliography of Sources

Dallas City Hall Maintenance Costs: https://www.dallasnews.com/news/watchdog/2024/01/26/dallas-city-hall-is-crumbling-should-we-save-it-or-start-over/

Reunion Arena History: https://www.dallasnews.com/news/2008/11/17/reunion-arena-demolition-begins/

Old Parkland Hospital Redevelopment: https://www.dallasnews.com/news/2006/06/29/parkland-s-old-campus-to-become-office-complex/

Fair Park Deferred Maintenance: https://www.dallasnews.com/news/2024/01/30/fair-park-board-members-angry-over-years-of-neglect-and-mismanagement/

Dallas Traffic Signal Repairs After Tornado: https://www.dallasnews.com/news/watchdog/2024/01/12/after-4-1-2-years-dallas-finally-replaces-tornado-damaged-stoplights/

Dallas Street Conditions Survey: https://www.dallasnews.com/news/watchdog/2024/01/19/dallas-residents-rate-street-maintenance-as-poor-in-city-survey/

Dallas County Hospital District History: https://www.parklandhealth.org/parkland-history

Old Parkland Hospital History: https://www.dmagazine.com/publications/d-magazine/2011/june/the-history-of-old-parkland/

Crow Holdings Redevelopment of Old Parkland: https://www.dmagazine.com/publications/d-ceo/2011/june/old-parkland-crow-holdings-dallas/

I.M. Pei Projects List: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_I._M._Pei_projects

Dallas Tornado FEMA Repairs: https://www.dallasnews.com/news/watchdog/2020/01/10/dallas-traffic-signals-damaged-by-tornado-wont-be-upgraded-fema-says/

Dallas City Hall Landmark Status Debate: https://www.dallasnews.com/news/watchdog/2024/03/01/dallas-city-hall-landmark-status-im-pei-demolition/

We know where the bodies are buried! We just need to get the new markers created and set. Some ground leveling is in order too, so that the lawn mowers aren’t hitting potholes as they try to keep the grass trimmed.

Under the new policy, city staff can now authorize up to $500,000 for architecture and construction projects and $300,000 for goods and services without council approval—tripling the previous limit of $100,000. Additionally, contracts will only require competitive bidding if they exceed $100,000, up from $50,000. The City of Dallas’ budget for 2025-26 fiscal year is $5.2 billion, and these community projects are drops in the bucket comparatively.

There are many hoops to jump through when dealing with large organizations, such as the City of Dallas. There are very necessary rules and regulations to prevent the misallocation of funds. The other side of that coin means a cumbersome process that is overly restrictive at moments and almost impossible to navigate.

The previous $100,000 limit kept me from applying for additional funds to purchase all 2000 markers at once, because the topic would have to go before the entire council and could result in the termination of the funds already granted.

So, to this preservationist, The City’s broadening of the size and scope of community projects is greatly welcomed news to the citizens of Dallas, and especially to this one!

“I spend more time with the dead than the living,” Daniel Babb said Saturday afternoon as we sat beneath a tree in a paupers’ cemetery stashed behind Northwest Dallas warehouses.

“How fortunate,” I said, as the dead might be better company these days.

There was a slight breeze, teasing at the autumn yet to arrive. A few feet away, beneath another tree, someone had laid a tattered blanket and a threadbare pillow, likely one of the homeless who occasionally come back here to sleep undisturbed among the more than 2,000 men, women and children — so many children — buried beneath this three acres of prairieland beginning 93 years ago.

I hadn’t visited the cemetery since December 2019, shortly after a tornado tore through this warehouse district. I was driving one afternoon among the ruins along Shady Trail Drive, between Walnut Hill Lane and Northwest Highway, when I noticed a small, white city of Dallas sign for the “City Paupers Cemetery” posted in a grassy walkway between two nondescript office-warehouse complexes.

Behind one complex sits what was once called the Dallas City Cemetery. Here, from 1932 to 1978, the city and county buried those who died without family, without friends, without money. But even now it looks like no cemetery you’ve ever seen: Scant markers can be found in the tall grass. And those that remain are small and often unreadable, some with misspelled names and occasionally wrong birth and death dates stamped on business-card-size pieces of tin nailed to concrete.

A little digging sent me to the website of Babb, a 60-year-old graduate of W.T. White High School and a genealogist who, over the last eight years, has become the unofficial caretaker and historian of this hallowed ground, one of 11 old cemeteries under the purview of the Park and Recreation Department.

Last week, now-former Park Board member Tim Dickey texted to let me know that there had been “a significant development” at the cemetery.

Dickey directed me to something Babb posted on his website, beneath the heading “A Watershed Moment for Dallas City Cemetery.” There, Babb revealed that “after nearly a decade of quiet persistence, heartbreak, and hope,” he had cobbled together enough money to purchase and plant 1,000 granite headstones with the city’s blessing (after a lot of paperwork).

Babb managed to raise $140,000, including $50,000 from private donations, another $40,000 from a Park Department matching grant and $50,000 more from former council member Omar Narvaez, who once told me he was stunned to learn of the cemetery and appalled the city had let it fall into such disrepair.

Robert Wilonsky

The headstones were ordered just last week, hours before a tariff went into effect that would have increased the price exponentially. Babb hopes to begin installing them come spring.

There’s also $150,055 in 2017 bond money meant to alleviate flooding along a warehouse wall, where, for about eight months out of the year, standing water drowns the graves of more than 250 children. That project appears stalled, according to the city’s website.

The city spends a pittance to keep it mowed — a few thousand dollars each year. On Saturday it was clear that crews hadn’t been out there for a long time. A bollard that stops cars from driving into the cemetery was missing. The grass was high, obscuring trash strewn across the cemetery, including a seemingly endless length of knifed-open black tubing from which thieves had stolen copper wires.

And in the back, along a fence separating the cemetery from construction equipment, there was a makeshift shelter big enough to sleep several people.

I asked John Jenkins, director of the Park Department, why the flooding project has been delayed. He blamed the high turnover and heavy workload at the Public Works department for the delay (“They have their priorities, too”), but said he would get crews out there immediately to replace and lock the missing bollard.

“It’s unique for us to have a partner like this with a cemetery, but it’s certainly warranted,” Jenkins said this week. “It’s amazing the work he’s doing out there, his commitment. These are folks who don’t have any families around. Daniel and the folks he’s gotten involved are their families now, there to give them the proper respect. He’s not trying to get publicity. That’s unique. That’s special. He’s one of a kind. And he has done this city a great service.”

Erosion, flooding, lawnmowers and decades of inattention have almost completely erased the names of the dead interred here, many of whom died from the tuberculosis outbreak that prompted the creation of Woodlawn Hospital in 1936. Their names, and their stories, were recovered using old maps stored at the downtown library; an incomplete and often inaccurate list of the interred posted to the web; researchers who volunteered countless hours to dig up birth and death certificates and old newspaper stories; and an army of people carrying metal detectors to locate the markers.

“The harshest ones to read are ‘Baby X, 1961,’ things like that,” Babb said. I asked how old that child might have been. “It’d probably be a day,” he said.

On Saturday, as we sat on high ground that used to be the path into and through the cemetery, Babb could point in any direction and tell you who is buried where and how they came to rest here.

Like Troy Wampler, buried in the far corner of the cemetery after he was robbed and shot in the chest and head in the spring of 1974, likely because he was a white man with a Black girlfriend. Cemetery records and old newspaper stories had his name spelled “Wanpler” until Babb realized a mistake had been made.

Babb motioned toward the unmarked grave of Ann Johnson, likely the daughter of South Carolina slaves. She was likely born in 1854 — not 1842, as cemetery records show — and buried in 1938 in the Black section of the cemetery. Researcher Marilyn Kosanke discovered that Ann’s son, Charles, is also buried in the Dallas City Cemetery.

Babb then motioned toward the ground where Mabel Adkins is buried, claimed by hepatitis on Nov. 2, 1935, at St. Paul’s Hospital. And over there, he said, is where William Dawkins was laid to rest in February 1932. Dawkins was the first person among 2,080 to be buried in this paupers’ cemetery.

“In genealogy, there’s this thing called collecting dead relatives,” Babb said. “It’s getting the dates of their births, their marriages, their deaths. It’s knowing things about them — finding where they worked and where they lived, which is often contained in the death certificates, and who they married. You can then start to put meat on those bones and, in a way, bring them back to life.”

There are a few modern headstones here, installed by family members who eventually found their relatives in the potter’s field, likely using the arduously updated Find a Grave website. One grave is adorned with a small Christmas tree made of wire, a reminder of the family’s annual pilgrimage to the paupers’ cemetery.

“A person experiences a second death when the last person speaks their name,” Babb said. “Right now, most of these people have experienced their second deaths, and I’m trying to erase that.”

Please go read the full article here as every click matters!
Wilonsky: Finally, restoring the names to the forgotten dead in a Dallas paupers’ cemetery

Please know that I cannot explain the history of Dallas without also explaining my journey through it. This blog is my way of telling the story of Dallas as it unveiled itself to me.

David’s heart, wit and charm left an indelible mark on each of us. He was effervescent, innocent and such a loving person that people couldn’t help but love him back.

To this day, I can still hear his voice in my head. It doesn’t tell me to burn things, but to let my light shine; and to allow others to bask in its glow.

David’s mortal life ended way too soon.

It was the night of the World Premier of his movie at the prestigious Lincoln Center in NYC. Lincoln Center serves as the home to the Julliard School of Dance amongst many other things. Having a movie Premier at Lincoln Center simply says, you have made it!

While celebrating at the after party, David ingested some drugs that were too much for his body to handle and he slipped away from this mortal life. the joyous event turned to shock and dismay. in 1996 there weren’t the mass channels for social media that help maintain relationships. Despite your best efforts, you simply lost track of others as you each pursued the next steps in your lives.

David didn’t attend my high school. Instead, I met him at a church youth group that I was deeply involved in during my Senior Year. It was a vibrant group that was full of love and hope. It was also one of the first places that I ever felt welcomed, no matter what kind of geeky, love starved, insecure young man you were.

Flash forward to 2025, and David’s name came up in a conversation with one of the few friends I’d managed to re-establish a relationship with. He knew David much better than I as they attended RL Turner high school together.

With my penchant for forensic research and his recollections and connections we were finally able to piece together enough of his life and to finally locate his grave. The biggest shock to us was that David wasn’t his first name. He wasn’t buried in Dallas County, as we had expected. His family lived in southern Farmer’s Branch, near LBJ.

Once we were able to locate his grave, we decided to take a trip out to see him. What we found was a granite marker that was deeply discolored from its placement under a live oak tree. We all want a shady final resting place, but lacking sun exposure mildew and grime had crept into the rough sections of the granite (called flamed granite). So, the interior of his headstone had abundant mildew on it.

I did some research and found a bio-degradable compound that is the only headstone cleaner approved by the National Park System, who manages the Veterans Cemeteries throughout the country. (https://d2bio.com).

We conducted two tests using this product, the first on David’s headstone and the next on his mother’s stone just to the right of his.

With David’s we sprayed, scrubbed and repeated about 5 times, then rinsed with water.

With his mother’s we sprayed and waited about 20 minutes. Then did a light scrub and rinsed with water. Hers actually came out better, so this is one of those times when patience works better than elbow grease.

Once those funds are received and forwarded to Calvary Hill Cemetery, they will place the formal order for the stones that will resemble the rendering below. The prices are locked in at this point, so there should be no further price increases that will hinder our progress for these markers.

Fresh Canvas of visible undamaged markers

In the meantime, I’ll be selecting the exact markers to be reproduced. Priority will be placed on those whose markers have been lost or are unable to be seen due to sinking/erosion.

I’ll be heading to the cemetery this weekend to see which ones are still intact so they can be excluded from the order to make our money stretch as far as possible.

Ground Penetrating Radar (GPR)

I’ll be seeking to have a GPR survey of Blocks 24 & 26 (the far-right corner as you approach the cemetery from the Gravel Drive), to create a full accounting of unidentified graves. Every marker in this sparsely occupied section of the cemetery will need to be replaced so that they will not hide under leaves and debris.

We already know of 3 people whose permanent markers were never installed, because we found the remnants of their temporary markers buried in the soil during our original survey. We just don’t know how many more there might be.

Once located, we will be contacting the Texas Historical Commission to inform them of the unmarked graves, as is required by State Law.

Producing/Shipping of the Markers

The markers will be created in China. This was not my wish, but it turns out that the rest of the world doesn’t have adequate manufacturing facilities to mass produce the needed quantities. They will be cut polished and inscribed, before being shipped. The transit time is approximately 18-27 days. Then they will go through customs and be shipped by Common Carrier where they will finally be dropped just inside the cemetery entrance (which is fortunately free of burials).

Goods shipped from Xiamen, China to Dallas, TX via boat and truck will travel approximately 8,389 miles in total:

• By sea: ~11,200 km (≈ 6,963 miles) from Xiamen to Los Angeles

• By truck: ~2,300 km (≈ 1,426 miles) from Los Angeles to Dallas

The Fun Part Begins!

Once onsite, we hope to have a forklift distribute the pallets along the central driveway near the Blocks where they will finally be placed. At this time, we can bring volunteers in who will work with Forest Lawn Cemetery to prepare and place them in their new permanent home. Each stone will be photographed with GPS coordinates and uploaded to Findagrave.com so that the world can continue to speak their names. For you are not truly dead until the last person utters your name.

The Dallas City Cemetery, known to few and visited by even fewer, is not a place of grandeur. Hidden behind warehouses, obscured by development, and ravaged by time, it has long stood as a silent witness to suffering. It is the final resting place for over 2,000 people—many of whom died alone, unnamed, and unclaimed. Their stories are not found in textbooks or museum exhibits. They are etched into the soil, whispered through the rusted markers, and carried in the wind that sweeps through the overgrown grass.

Today, that silence was broken.

The Babb Family Association, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit, has received final approval from the City of Dallas and contracted the purchase of the first 1,000 new granite headstone markers—each one a testament to a life once lived. These 12x8x4” stones will be placed just beneath the original concrete and metal markers, for those that still exist, anchoring memory in permanence. I serve as the Project Manager for this rescue effort.

This moment was made possible by:

• A $50,000 deposit from privately raised funds.

• A $40,000 matching grant from the Dallas Parks Department.

• An additional $50,000 from the 2017 Dallas Bond Funds, secured through the tireless efforts of Councilperson Omar Narvaez and his former Chief of Staff, now District 6 Councilperson, the Honorable Laura Cadena.

Their belief in this mission helped navigate the maze of bureaucracy and bring light to a place long shrouded in darkness. I also owe a profound debt of gratitude to Tim Dickey, Area 5 Coordinator for the Dallas Parks Department. His unwavering support and shared passion kept me going when the odds felt insurmountable.

I also need to thank Reggie Cusick who harnessed 3 different local metal detectorist organizations and brought 50+ detectorists to help us find the 2000 plus graves and most importantly to locate almost 500 dislodged nameplates that were floating around the cemetery, often just out of view. There are times that the paper trail failed us and if not for these important finds we could never have produced the most far reaching and accurate accounting ever conducted in this cemetery. In all I counted over 90 volunteers with hundreds of service hours between them. We can now accurately account for 99.9% of the burial locations for the 2060 known residents.

This cemetery is not just a patch of land. It is a mirror of our city’s soul. It holds the stories of those lost to tuberculosis, malnutrition, dementia, poverty, and the Great Depression. It holds the unnamed, the unclaimed, and the unsupported. It holds the people who built Dallas from the margins—quietly, invisibly, and without recognition.

Since the first burial of Will Dawkins on February 19, 1932, this ground was meant to be a place of peace. But erosion, faulty marker designs, and a lack of planning turned it into a place of confusion and decay. Today, less than 25% of graves are accessible to family members. The most frequent visitors are not mourners, but Parks Department crews fighting a losing battle against time and terrain.

But now, the tide is turning.

These new markers are more than stone. They are names reclaimed, lives honored, and histories remembered. They are a promise that no one is too forgotten to be mourned. That no life is too small to be marked. That dignity does not depend on wealth, fame, or family—but on our collective willingness to remember.

This is not the end of the journey. It is the beginning of healing. A beginning where the Dallas City Cemetery becomes a place worth visiting—not just to grieve, but to learn. To reflect. To honor.

Because Dallas was not built solely by its founders and visionaries. It was shaped by every soul laid to rest here. And today, we begin to say: We see you. We remember you. You mattered.

Founded in 1974, the museum has long served as a cultural anchor, housing rare photographs, oral histories, artworks, and archival materials that chronicle the Black experience in North Texas. But until now, much of its collection remained accessible only to those who could walk through its doors.

That’s about to change.

🔍 Digitization as Historical Justice

Digitization isn’t just about scanning documents—it’s about restoring visibility to lives and legacies that have too often been overlooked. From church programs and business ledgers to portraits of civic leaders and everyday families, the museum’s holdings reflect the richness and resilience of Dallas’s African American communities.

This grant will allow curators, archivists, and technologists to work together to catalog, preserve, and share these materials online. For researchers, educators, and descendants alike, it opens a new portal into the past.

🖼️ What Will Be Digitized?

While the full scope is still unfolding, the museum has signaled that the digitization effort will include:

• Rare photographs from the 1970s onward

• Oral histories and interviews with community elders

• Church and civic records

• Artworks by Black Dallas artists

• Ephemera from local businesses, schools, and social clubs

Each item tells a story. Together, they form a mosaic of memory.

🌐 Why It Matters

Dallas has long been a city of contrasts—booming development alongside deep-rooted inequality. This project helps rebalance the historical record, ensuring that Black voices and contributions are not just remembered but made accessible to all.

For those of us who believe in the power of public history, this is a moment to celebrate. It’s also a call to action: to support, share, and engage with the stories that emerge.

📣 What’s Next?

The museum plans to roll out its digital archive in phases, with community input shaping priorities. Public workshops, educator resources, and interactive exhibits are all on the horizon.

As someone who’s spent years uncovering Dallas’s hidden histories, I’ll be watching closely—and sharing updates as they come.

It is with a heavy heart that I announce that the Downtown Dallas Neiman Marcus is heading to permanent closure on March 31st, 2025. Saks Global refused to even meet with City of Dallas leadership regarding a potential deal to keep the store open.

Instead, they issued a statement from their ivory tower in Downtown Manhattan that read:

"The Dallas Consortium's ongoing tactic of using the press to pressure us into changing our strategy in Dallas is highly unproductive. Even after our corrections to their previous false statements, they continue to go to the press, making inaccurate claims. Our decision to close the Neiman Marcus Downtown Dallas store is final and we are moving forward as such."

They went on to say that is it complicated…yada, yada, yada…you’re screwed…blah, blah, blah…and something about hard feelings from a 10-year process, during which they didn’t even own Neiman’s!

I want to hire the world’s smallest violin to play for them.

I know the situation for Brick-and-Mortar retailers is difficult in our modern age. It is also evident that shopping patterns have changed over the years and migrated out to the suburbs. But the downtown building was the very heart and soul of Neiman Marcus. For many years the buyers and executives occupied the floors just above the store. A number of my friends even worked there at one point.

In my younger years I worked at Macy’s at Dallas Galleria and was recruited by the downtown store to come be a sales associate there. I was offered the job, but we could never come to terms on the sharing of the retiring employees’ book of business, so I didn’t take the post. My destiny was in the software business, but that is a story for another day.

I fear the worst for their headquarters in that may not be well suited for other purposes. That is akin to a death sentence for any historic structure. Buildings are meant to be occupied. Without people coming in and out, it is already dead.

Source:
Neiman Marcus makes final decision to close Downtown Dallas flagship store on March 31

Early this morning our first event occurred as Catherine Marcus Rose, a member of the Marcus family, shared her reflections on this transition, emphasizing the importance of embracing change while cherishing the legacy of Neiman Marcus. Her sentiments resonate with many who see this closure as both an end and a new beginning for the brand and the city.

I’m sure she is a very lovely person, but I happen to disagree with her on this matter. This is our history, and we need to fight to preserve it. If we forget our past, we are dooming that building to demolition!

Dallas too often bulldozes its past and as a result there are very few buildings from our past. The very reason I started this publication was to rally to the causes of our collective history. Look, I’m not even the Neiman’s customer. I grew up poor and even today as I see the price tags, I shudder a little. But I recognize its importance to the history of Dallas and to shortsightedly close this store because of a rent dispute is just plain wrong!

The current Neiman Marcus Downtown Dallas store was a gift to the retailer after a devastating fire in 1913 destroyed the original store. The new building, located at 1618 Main Street, was constructed with the help of generous contributions from the Dallas community. This act of support not only helped Neiman Marcus recover but also solidified its place as a cornerstone of Dallas' retail and cultural identity. The store has since become an iconic landmark, representing resilience and the strong ties between the retailer and the city.

Our second event today came as the deed for the building and property was transferred to the City of Dallas in hopes of rescuing the store from becoming a boarded-up storefront. The only use the city has for this would be to convert it to affordable living. In a way that would be fitting since Neiman’s only paid $400/month over the last 99-years in rent. But it should send a shiver down the spine of any devout customer to see it transformed from Chanel #5 to a soup kitchen.

The donation of the property to the City of Dallas stands potential to help save this landmark. It is yet another gift to the retailer from the descendants of the very people who helped put the building there in the first place. Conversely, it is also a moment of saving face after these same people cancelled Neiman’s lease just over a month ago. I’m not sure how I feel about this, but it might prove to be too little too late.

Despite efforts by city leaders and the Slaughter family, who generously donated their parcel of land under the store to the city, Saks Global has reaffirmed its plans to close the location.

Our third event of the day just came through a few hours ago when city officials announced a meeting tomorrow with executives from Neiman’s parent company Saks Global.

City officials, including Dallas City Manager Kimberly Bizor Tolbert, have expressed their commitment to preserving the vibrancy of Downtown Dallas. The acquisition of the land deed was a significant step, showcasing the city's dedication to keeping the flagship store operational.

I can only surmise that either the store was no longer profitable, or that Saks Global intends to hold the city over a barrel until they can extract additional incentives. I know that is how business is done, but it smacks of robber barons.

I did not see an announced location for this meeting, but I can imagine a mob in their Louboutins, riding a Llama named Llinda Llee!

Sources:
Dallas News: Catherine Marcus Rose: Saying goodbye to downtown Neiman’s, hello to the future
MSN: Dallas City Hall gets deed to disputed land at Neiman Marcus
MSN: Dallas leaders to meet with Neiman Marcus' parent company on Downtown Dallas store
Statler Hilton: https://thestatlerdallas.com/history

Neiman Marcus and the landlord (Slaughter Partners) have been locked in a decade long dispute with the retailer over a basement level strip of about 2,500 square feet. The details of that dispute aren’t readily available, but they burst into public view with the store’s announcement of the impending closure earlier this month.

I wondered why it was that the poshest retailer on the planet didn’t own their own building. So, I did a little research and found that the landlord of the Neiman Marcus building in Downtown Dallas has owned the property for a significant amount of time. The property ownership dates back to a lease signed in 1926 between Neiman Marcus founders Abraham Lincoln "Al" Neiman and Herbert Marcus, and C.C. Slaughter. The lease was a 99-year ground lease that ended on January 31, 2025.

Today we would call that corporate welfare, but it was an act of philanthropy to assure that the store survived. So, we now know that the store known colloquially as Needless Markup only had to sell a single shirt each month to pay the rent. But I digress!

The landlord of the Neiman Marcus Downtown Dallas store is Slaughter Partners, a Dallas-based entity. Slaughter Partners is a derivative of C.C. Slaughter, the man who first arranged the 99-year lease.

Christopher Columbus Slaughter, aka C.C. Slaughter, was a prominent American rancher, cattle drover, cattle breeder, banker, and philanthropist in the American frontier. Born on February 9, 1837, in Sabine County, Texas, he became known as the "Cattle King of Texas" due to his extensive cattle operations and land holdings.

Slaughter served as a colonel in the Confederate States Army during the American Civil War and later became one of the largest cattle owners in Texas, with over 40,000 cattle and more than one million acres of ranch land. He was also a significant philanthropist.

In the last days, City leaders negotiated a land deal that saw the store's landlords donate the land to the City of Dallas.

Today Saks Global, the parent company of Neiman Marcus, doubled down and confirmed that the store would indeed be closing.

Is this Neiman’s last hurrah or with the titans eventually come to an agreement? Only time will tell! I’ve got my ear to the rail of this roller coaster and will post updates as they become available. I’m just glad that Stanley isn’t around to see this tragedy unfold in slow motion.

Sources:
CBS Texas
CBS Texas
www.fox4news.com
www.wfaa.com
www.dmagazine.com
en.wikipedia.org
www.tshaonline.org
Image: Courtesy Microsoft Copilot