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West Dallas

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West Dallas
Fish Trap Lake Park in West Dallas, including the smokestack of the defunct RSR Corporation smelter in the background
Fish Trap Lake Park in West Dallas, including the smokestack of the defunct RSR Corporation smelter in the background
Location in Dallas
Location in Dallas
CountryUnited States
StateTexas
CountiesDallas
CityDallas
Area
 • Total
11.45 sq mi (29.66 km2)
 • Land11.45 sq mi (29.66 km2)
 • Water0 sq mi (0 km2)  0%
Elevation
406 ft (124 m)
Population
 (2000)
 • Total
24,132
ZIP code
75212 (main postal zip code), 75208 and 75211 (small areas)
Area code(s)214, 469, 972
Websitewww.westdallaschamber.org
References:[1]

West Dallas is an area consisting of many communities and neighborhoods in Dallas, Texas, United States. West Dallas currently denotes the area bounded by Interstate 30 on the south, the Trinity River on the east and north, and the Trinity River's West Fork on the west.[2]

Demographics

In the late 1980s, the neighborhood had a population of 13,161.[3] As of the 2000 U.S. census, there were 24,132 people living in the neighborhood.[3] The racial makeup of the neighborhood was 2.7% White, 37.3% African American, 0.6% Native American, 2.4% Asian or Pacific Islander, 41.8% from Hispanic or Latino, and 15.2% from two or more races.[citation needed]

Neighborhoods

One of the city's up-and-coming areas for urban revitalization, West Dallas is seeing new developments emerge. They include:

  • Trinity Groves, on Singleton Boulevard
  • Sylvan/Thirty, on Fort Worth Avenue
  • Alta West Commerce
  • Alta Yorktown
  • Cliff View (West of Sylvan and north of Fort Worth Avenue)

These developments are bringing top-tier chefs, yoga studios, fresh-food markets, hip retail and apartments and condos with views of the downtown Dallas skyline, the Margaret Hunt Hill Bridge and the Margaret McDermott Bridge.

Long-standing neighborhoods in West Dallas prior to gentrification of the community include:

Neighborhoods of West Dallas[2]
  • Bickers Park
  • Buena Vista
  • Cement City
  • Cross Hampton
  • Cross Westmoreland, Dallas
  • Commerce Heights
  • College Park (Riggins)
  • Colonia Tepeyac, Dallas
  • Coombs West End
  • Crossman Ave
  • Gilbert-Emory
  • Ledbetter/Eagle Ford, Dallas
  • Fish Trap Projects
  • Greenleaf Village
  • Homestead Manor
  • El Aceite (mistakenly written as "La L'aceate"), Dallas|El Aceite
  • La Bajada
  • La Estrella, Dallas|La Estrella
  • La Loma, Dallas|La Loma
  • La Mexicanita
  • La Reunion (Texas)|La Reunion
  • Lake West
  • Ledbetter Gardens
  • Los Altos
  • Muncie, Dallas|Muncie
  • P J Allen No 3
  • Rupert Circle, Dallas|Rupert Circle Projects
  • Victory Gardens
  • Weisenberger Lucky 7
  • West Dallas Housing Projects
  • Western Heights, Dallas|Western heights
  • Westmoreland Heights
  • Westmoreland Park

WEST DALLAS HOUSING PROJECTS: located near HAMPTON RD & SINGLETON BLVD. this development dates back to the early 1950s. It consisted of three separate developments, segregated by race (Blacks, Hispanics and Whites). The names of the developments were: GEORGE LOVING PLACE, EDGAR WARD PLACE & ELMER SCOTT PLACE.

Industrial sections

  • Lone Star Industrial Park
  • Singleton Industrial Area
  • Turnpike Distribution Center

Education

Public Education

Public education in West Dallas is provided by Dallas and Irving Independent School Districts, as well as a public charter school from Uplift Education and two private schools. Dallas schools cover over 90% of the area — only areas on the north side of the original channel of Westmoreland and on the west side of the original channel of Mountain Creek attend Irving schools. (See: Channeling of the Trinity River)

All students zoned to Dallas ISD Schools attend Thomas A. Edison Middle Learning Center and L. G. Pinkston High School,[4] as well as one of the following elementary schools:

  • C. F. Carr Elementary School
  • Sequoyah Learning Center (Demolished for L. G. Pinkston new site)
  • Dallas Environmental Science Academy (Now housed in the former Amelia Earhart)
  • George W. Carver Learning Center (Demolished for L. G. Pinkston new site)
  • Amelia Earhart Elementary School (Closed)
  • Benito Juarez (Closed)
  • Fredrick Douglas (Closed)
  • Priscilla Tyler (closed and purchased by West Dallas Community School)
  • Lorenzo DeZavala Elementary School
  • Sidney Lanier Elementary School Vanguard for Expressive Arts
  • Eladio R. Martinez Learning Center
  • Gabe P. Allen Elementary School
  • West Dallas STEM School

All students zoned to Irving schools attend Bowie Middle School and Nimitz High School. Students living on the north side of the original channel of the West Fork of the Trinity River attend Schulze Elementary School and students living on the west side of the original channel of Mountain Creek attend Townley Elementary School.[5]

Students in West Dallas may also attend Uplift Heights Preparatory, a college preparatory, non-selective, but lottery-based public charter school located in the Lake West neighborhood of West Dallas. As of August 2015, Uplift Heights serves slightly more than 1,700 Pre-Kindergarten through 11th grade students. Uplift Heights will have its first graduating class in 2017. Uplift Heights Preparatory has been open since 2006 and is part of Uplift Education.

Private Education

  • Mayo Kindergarten, a Christian Private School, formerly located in Eagle Ford in the 5500 block of Fannie Street. Mrs. Sammie Lee Crump, was the owner and operator of the school and it was the first Black owned school in West Dallas.
  • West Dallas Community School, a Christian private school, is in West Dallas.[6]
  • St. Mary of Carmel Catholic School, established in 1944, is located at 1716 Singleton Boulevard in the heart of West Dallas.[7]

Post-Secondary Education

Other Educational Centers and Resources

  • Voice of Hope Ministries, a Christian Out-of-School time program founded in 1982 is in West Dallas. They provide after school and summer programming for the children of West Dallas.
  • Wesley-Rankin Community Center
  • Readers To Leaders
  • Mercy Street

History

The recorded history of the area that would become West Dallas begins in the 1840s, when the Republic of Texas offered up to 640 acres of land to homesteaders."Handbook of Texas, Republic of Texas". Retrieved 2010-04-26. {{cite web}}: Unknown parameter |published= ignored (help)</ref>

Eagle Ford was settled by Enoch Horton in 1844 at the site of ford in the west fork of the Trinity River floodplain, located at what is now the western end of West Dallas."Handbook of Texas, Eagle Ford". Retrieved 2010-04-26. {{cite web}}: Unknown parameter |published= ignored (help) An important community in the area in the 1850s, it was the site a grist mill used by nearby farmers. Enoch's daughter Sarah Horton Cockrell was an important business leader in early Dallas, most notably building the first bridge connecting the city Dallas to west.

In 1855, the Fourierist colony of La Réunion was established. The colony attracted approximately five hundred European settlers starting in 1855, briefly rivaling the small town of Dallas as an urban center. Although the colony was formally dissolved in 1857 and many of the settlers returned to Europe,, others such as Benjamin Long and Jacob Boll moved to Dallas and became prominent citizens in the growing metropolis. A few, such as the Santerre and Reverchon families would remain and continue to farm the colony land until the turn of the 18th century.

In 1873, the Texas and Pacific Railway arrived in Eagle Ford, which became the western terminus of the railroad when construction was halted because of the Panic of 1873. This brief boom period would last until 1878, when construction had resumed and Fort Worth supplanted it.[8]

Industrial development and exploitation of the area began in the early 1900s, with the establishment of a brick works using the rich Trinity clay, and a cement works that processed the limestone cliffs into cement.[9]

The town of Cement, Texas was incorporated on April 28, 1908 as a segregated factory town for the Texas Portland Cement Company. [10]

Many of the workers at the cement plant were Mexican immigrants who were fleeing the Mexican Revolution.[11]>

In 1909 the Thomas A. Edison School was built.

As West Dallas's population grew, flooding became an increasingly serious problem, as much of the area lies in the flood prone Trinity bottom lands. The Dallas Levee System was originally completed in 1932 and upgraded in the 1950s by the United States Army Corps of Engineers, significantly addressing the flooding problem in the area.[12]

Although in 1931 Cement City had a population of 609, the population had declined to 249 in the late 1940s and by 1951 the community was no longer incorporated.[13] In 1954, West Dallas was officially annexed by the city of Dallas. [14]>

In 1955, the West Dallas housing projects were established, consisting of three separate developments, segregated by race (Blacks, Hispanics and Whites). The names of the developments were George Loving Place, Edgar Ward Place and Elmer Scott Place.[15]

On April 2, 1957, the devastating 1957 Dallas tornado passed through West Dallas.

On September 29, 1995 the RSR Corporation lead smelting plant was declared a Superfund site after decades of efforts by local residents.[16]

In March 2012, the Santiago Calatrava-designed Margaret Hunt Hill Bridge opened as part of the Trinity River Project. The bridge and associated Trinity Groves retail development have marked a new era of gentrification for the neighborhood. Neighborhoods such as La Bajada have been put under pressure from rising property taxes and speculative real estate development.[17]

Environmental History

Murphy Metals (later known as RSR Corporation), a secondary lead smelter processing company, opened a 63-acre (250,000 m2) facility and in 1934 started operations at the site. The process of secondary lead smelting melts the collected lead materials or, lead scrap, into metallic lead that can then be used to cast into molds.[18] Significant lead emissions can occur from poorly controlled refining, casting, and drossing operations.[18] The city of Dallas annexed West Dallas into the city limits in 1954. Before that year, many residents lived in an area lacking the basic services because they resided outside the city lines. Then in 1956 a 3,500-unit public housing complex was to be built just north of the RSR lead smelter facility. The southern edge of the public housing complex was located 50 feet (15 m) from the lead smelter's property line. In 1968 the City of Dallas enacted an ordinance prohibiting more than 5 micrograms per cubic meter over a 30-day period. This act went unenforced because in the 1960s RSR Corp West Dallas facility released more than 269 tons of lead particles into the air each year. During that time few residents could afford the luxury of air conditioning, so in the summers they kept their doors and windows open to combat the heat, directly exposing them to the toxins in the air, even in their own homes. It wasn't until 1972 that Dallas officials learned that lead could be finding its way into the bloodstreams of children who lived in West Dallas and the bordering community of East Oak Cliff. The Dallas Health Department then conducted a study of their own. They found children living near smelters had elevated levels of lead. Lead was able to reach their bloodstream through the air, soil and households in and around their living environments. In areas near smelters children had a 36 percent increase in blood lead levels. The city failed to take immediate action and in 1974 the city sued local smelters. The company agreed to pay $35,000 and install new pollution control equipment. This did little to resolve the problem because in 1983 the pollution equipment had still not been installed at RSR Corp. Pressure from the community on government agencies was beginning to rise. A citizens group appointed by the Dallas City Council, The Dallas Alliance Environmental Task Force, has this to say in a 1983 study

“We believe the city had missed many opportunities to serve and protect the community at large and two neighborhoods in particular in relation to the lead problem we now address. It is clear that the State and Federal governments have also failed in their opportunity to regulate and industry of this type with regard to the general welfare of citizens.”

Before that in 1981 public concern and pressure were raised after the West Dallas Boys Club had to suspend outside activity after one soil test showed the soil contained 36 times the level considered dangerous for children. The club was later forced to close in 1983 due to high lead levels related to the years of operations of the RSR secondary lead smelter operation. After lengthy test and lawsuits and delayed clean-up action, partially government agencies fault, RSR Corp. was ordered by the Dallas Board of Adjusters to close the West Dallas facility. In the summer of 1985 an out-of-court settlement was reached between RSR Corp. and Fred Baron who represented 370 children and 40 property owners who were all affected by the lead emitted from RSR. The settlement was for 20 million dollars. However, with this settlement the land that the old RSR Corp facility used to sit on still contained large amounts of lead contamination dangerous to all ages of people. In May 1993 a proposal of the RSR Corp. site in West Dallas was sent to the National Priorities List, also named a Superfund site[19] President Clinton's administration then brought more publicity to the issue when in November 1993 an article written in The Progressive had this to say

“West Dallas residents celebrated when the Clinton Administration declared last May that they live in the largest lead-contaminated Superfund site in the United States. Portions of one of the nation's biggest housing projects and five schools, all located within five square miles of a now-defunct lead smelter, are slated for cleanup (although Federal Environmental Protection Agency records indicate as much as sixteen square miles of West Dallas are contaminated)."

[This quote needs a citation] For the residents who had been pushing for years and decades to solve the problem could lay their case to rest on September 28, 1994, when the EPA signed Preliminary Close Out Report for the RSR Corp. Superfund site stating all clean-up for all the units had been completed. The EPA then signed a Ready For Reuse document in May 2005 declaring the site ready for reuse or redevelopment[19] The EPA reported that the clean-up resulted in direct lower lead blood leaves of children. The community also benefited by having 400 properties 300 acres (1.2 km2) of commercial property eliminated of contamination.

Government Agencies and Companies serving West Dallas

United States Postal Service Dallas Main Post Office is a processing center located at 401 Tom Landry Highway, Dallas, Texas, 75260. The Brookhollow Station services zip codes 75212 and 75247 which are home to West Dallas and the extension of West Dallas known as the Design District.

AT&T the landlines for West Dallas are serviced by two wire centers Dallas Melrose was originally telephone numbers beginning with 214-63X-XXXX which is considered the western portion of the community. Dallas Riverside was originally telephone numbers beginning with 214-74X-XXXX which is the eastern portion into Downtown Dallas.

Dallas Public Library West Dallas is served by the Dallas West Branch of the Dallas Public Library at 2332 Singleton Blvd.

West Dallas Multipurpose Center

Builders of Hope

Transportation

Bus

Light rail

Alternative Transportation

Highways

Notable people

References

  1. ^ West Dallas Chamber of Commerce - About. Retrieved on 6 December 2006.
  2. ^ a b West Dallas Chamber of Commerce - Map. Retrieved on 14 May 2009.
  3. ^ a b Newton, David E. (2009). Environmental justice: a reference handbook. ABC-CLIO. p. 6. ISBN 978-1598842234. Retrieved November 2, 2012.
  4. ^ Dallas ISD - 2007 School Feeder Patterns - L. G. Pinkston High School. (Maps: ES: Allen, Carr, Carver, DeZavala, Earhart, Lanier, Martinez, Sequoyah; MS: Edison, Quintanilla; HS: Pinkston.) Retrieved on 13 May 2007.
  5. ^ Irving ISD - School Feeder Patterns. (Maps: ES: Schulze, Townley; MS: Bowie; HS: Nimitz.) Retrieved on 13 May 2007.
  6. ^ "Home." West Dallas Community School. Retrieved on September 6, 2011. "2300 Canada Drive | Dallas, Texas 75212"
  7. ^ "[1]."St. Mary of Carmel Catholic School. Retrieved on September 1, 2020. "1716 Singleton Boulevard | Dallas, Texas 75212"
  8. ^ "Handbook of Texas, Eagle Ford". {{cite web}}: Unknown parameter |published= ignored (help)
  9. ^ "Retracing History in West Dallas". ArcGIS StoryMaps. Retrieved 2010-04-26.
  10. ^ "Cement City Collection". Retrieved 2024-10-16. {{cite web}}: Unknown parameter |published= ignored (help)
  11. ^ "History of West Dallas". Southern Methodist University. Retrieved 2010-04-26.
  12. ^ "Dallas Levees & Pump Stations Overview". Trinity River Corridor. Retrieved 2024-10-16.
  13. ^ "Handbook of Texas". Retrieved 2010-04-26. {{cite web}}: Unknown parameter |published= ignored (help)
  14. ^ "History of West Dallas". Southern Methodist University. Retrieved 2010-04-26.
  15. ^ "The Forgotten City". D Magazine. Retrieved 2010-04-26.
  16. ^ "Decades after closure of lead smelter, voices rise against other West Dallas polluters". Dallas Morning News. Retrieved 2010-04-26.
  17. ^ . Dallas Observer https://www.dallasobserver.com/news/bridge-to-somewhere-6421938. Retrieved 2010-04-26. {{cite web}}: Missing or empty |title= (help)
  18. ^ a b "Department of Labor". U.S. Government. Retrieved 2010-04-26.
  19. ^ a b "EPA Region 6" (PDF). U.S. EPA. Archived from the original on May 14, 2009. Retrieved 2010-04-26.
  20. ^ Dallas News Administrator (December 22, 2009). "Mattie Lee Nash, former City Council member and strong voice for West Dallas, dies". Dallas Morning News.
  21. ^ "Black History Month: Local legends in music, theater, dance, and more", The Dallas Morning News, February 3, 2006

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