Trading center / 1873–1918

Connecting to places near and far

Two railroads made Dallas a city--the Houston and Texas Central and the Texas and Pacific. They brought a flood of new residents and businesses. Soon two were not enough, and more railroads were attracted to the city to take agricultural products from farms to markets and consumer goods to everybody. The cities of Dallas County also built other transportation, streetcars, commuter rail, automobiles, and even one last effort to sail the Trinity River. And then the airplanes landed.