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    Dallas's Little Mexico
    Dallas's Little Mexico
    Dallas's Little Mexico
    Ebook196 pages38 minutes

    Dallas's Little Mexico

    By Sol Villasana

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    About this ebook

    Little Mexico was Dallas's earliest Mexican barrio. "Mexicanos" had lived in Dallas since the mid-19th century. The social displacement created by the Mexican Revolution of 1910, however, caused the emergence of a distinct and vibrant neighborhood on the edge of the city's downtown. This neighborhood consisted of modest homes, small businesses, churches, and schools, and further immigration from Mexico in the 1920s caused its population to boom. By the 1930s, Little Mexico's population had grown to over 15,000 people. The expanding city's construction projects, urban renewal plans, and land speculation by developers gradually began to dismantle Little Mexico. By the end of the 20th century, Little Mexico had all but disappeared, giving way to upscale high-rise residences and hotels, office towers of steel and glass, and the city's newest entertainment district. This book looks at Little Mexico's growth, zenith, demise, and its remarkable renaissance as a neighborhood.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherArcadia Publishing
    Release dateSep 18, 2012
    ISBN9781439624852
    Dallas's Little Mexico
    Author

    Sol Villasana

    Sol Villasana is a Dallas lawyer, mediator, and writer. He has also taught at Southern Methodist University. Villasana is the former chair of the Hispanic Advisory Committee of the Dallas Independent School District and a former board member of the Dallas Mexican American Historical League. He has been the recipient of numerous awards, including the Dallas Bar Association�s Distinguished Pro Bono Service Award.

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      Book preview

      Dallas's Little Mexico - Sol Villasana

      barrio.

      INTRODUCTION

      At the end of the 19th century, Dallas was one of Texas’s largest and most important cities. The trade in cotton, insurance business, banking, and, importantly, railroads, had assured Dallas’s prominence in the emerging New South. The city’s Southern heritage contributed to racial conflicts between African Americans and whites throughout the 20th century. But unlike most other large Southern cities, there was a third ethnic element in the social mix. Dallas had a quickly growing Mexican American population, a population that was also seeking the American dream. This is the story of that community’s first foothold in Dallas; it is the story of Dallas’s Little Mexico.

      Mexicans have been part of Dallas since its beginning. However, Mexicans began to arrive in earnest with the city’s first railroads in the 1870s. Many of the rail lines followed old trading routes familiar to Mexicans for generations. While not an old Spanish/Mexican town like San Antonio or El Paso, Dallas was, nonetheless, an important early trading center on the northern edge of Mexico’s former province.

      The social displacement caused by the violence of the 1910 Mexican Revolution was the impetus that propelled thousands of Mexicans to American cities, including Dallas. But unlike the Mexican traders, traveling in small groups or alone, who went back and forth between Mexico and the United States, these new immigrants came with their whole families and returning to Mexico was not assured. They needed to develop whole new communities.

      As in many other cities, Dallas’s early Mexicans often first settled along the town’s railroad yards. There they could find shelter, sometimes an old rail car, and if they were lucky, work. Better-heeled immigrants could find cheap rentals in Dallas’s old red-light district just north of downtown or in the older housing stock of an early Eastern European Jewish neighborhood a little farther north. This was to become Little Mexico, or as the residents called it, La Colonia, a distinct and vibrant neighborhood of modest homes, small businesses, churches, and schools. Further immigration from Mexico during the 1920s caused its numbers to boom. By the 1930s, Dallas’s Little Mexico had grown to a population of over 15,000.

      The Spanish language played a crucial role in Little Mexico’s development and growth. Around the common language grew the barrio, or neighborhood. Since its founding, Texas had always been bilingual, but now with revolution and labor shortages caused by World War I, more than ever, Spanish brought together a people far away from home.

      Language and family ties also connected Little Mexico to Dallas’s other Mexican barrios in far West Dallas, around the Portland Cement Plant at Eagle Ford, and in old East Dallas, near the Houston and Central Texas Railroad Station. But Little Mexico was the major Mexican American community.

      World War II saw a surge of patriotism from Dallas’s Mexican immigrants. While many were not even citizens, hundreds went off to fight for their adopted country; many did not return. Those who did came home to Little Mexico with a new sense of not just being Mexican but of being American. The GI Bill and other veteran benefits caused citizenship to rise, education levels to increase, political muscle to flex, and new Hispanic neighborhoods to develop.

      The dispersal of the younger Mexican American population and post-war urban-renewal projects began to slowly dismantle Little Mexico. Developers also began to see the value of close to downtown living and entertainment projects. Many older Mexican Americans in Little Mexico were swindled out of their homes by less than honest developers. By the end of the 20th century, Little Mexico had all but disappeared, giving way to upscale, high-rise residences, office towers of steel and glass, and swank hotels. Two new downtown entertainment districts, Victory Plaza and the Harwood District, also emerged in Little Mexico’s wake.

      Today young Hispanics are rediscovering Dallas’s Mexican roots through the schools and several special projects highlighting old neighborhoods like Little Mexico. This Images of America volume tells the visual story of the Little Mexico barrio at a time when the Spanish language is stronger and more vital than ever throughout not only the Southwest, but the entire nation. Using vintage and recent photographs provided by individuals, families, businesses, and organizations, this book paints a portrait of a rich cultural heritage.

      One

      BEGINNINGS

      RAILROADS AND REVOLUTION

      Texas is a big land. In the early 19th century, travel in Texas was difficult and dangerous. The Spanish royal roads tended to follow the old Indian trails (like the Shawnee Trail), which was a practice that was later copied by Anglo settlers. The National Central Highway (now Interstate 35) was from 1844 the major north-to-south road. At Dallas, it became Preston Road and went north to the Indian Territory at the Red River. The nation’s post–Civil War need for goods and material, especially cotton and cattle, provided the economic stimulus for the growth of the Texas railroads.

      In 1872, the Houston and Texas Central Railroad reached Dallas from the Port of Galveston. The Texas and Pacific Railroad soon ran from east to west through the growing city. The Missouri, Kansas, and Texas Railroad (KATY) followed the Shawnee Trail north from Dallas into America’s heartland. By the beginning of the 20th century, Dallas was well established as a major rail hub.

      All along the rail lines, Mexican workers assisted in the railroads’

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