58 Fun Facts About Dallas

Who founded Dallas in 1841, settling beside a Trinity River ford he had picked for a trading post?

John Neely Bryan lived to stand on the platform when the first train reached his town in 1872, but he died five years later in the state lunatic asylum in Austin.

George M. Dallas, a candidate for the Texas city's namesake, was vice president under which US president?

James K. Polk took office with him in 1845, but the town already carried the name Dallas by then, and no evidence shows that its founder ever knew the vice president.

Dallas is the third most populous city in Texas after which two?

Houston and San Antonio hold more people inside their city limits, but at the 2020 census the Dallas–Fort Worth metropolitan area was the most populous in Texas and the fourth-largest in the country.

Which celebrity chef ran Five Sixty, the revolving restaurant atop Reunion Tower?

Wolfgang Puck opened Five Sixty in 2009, named for its perch some 560 feet above the city, and closed it for good in 2020 when the pandemic shut the tower.

The Reunion district of Dallas takes its name from what?

A 19th-century French socialist commune, La Réunion, broke up within a few years, and its brewers, tailors and musicians moved into Dallas with skills the frontier town lacked.

The tallest building in Dallas, outlined in green light at night, is which skyscraper?

Bank of America Plaza rises 921 feet over 72 storeys, and it stands alone because the matching twin tower planned beside it was never built.

President Kennedy was shot in 1963 as his motorcade passed along Elm Street through which downtown space?

Dealey Plaza was almost the end of the route: the motorcade was minutes from the Dallas Trade Mart, where Kennedy was due to speak at a luncheon.

From which building did the Warren Commission conclude Lee Harvey Oswald fired?

The Texas School Book Depository stood empty while a local campaign pushed to tear it down, until Dallas County bought it in 1977 and its sixth floor became a museum.

Where was Lyndon Johnson sworn in as president two hours after Kennedy was shot?

Aboard Air Force One at Love Field, Johnson waited for federal judge Sarah T. Hughes to hurry to the plane, which made her the first woman to swear in a US president.

Who shot Lee Harvey Oswald in the basement of Dallas police headquarters two days after Kennedy's assassination?

Jack Ruby, a Dallas nightclub owner, was sentenced to death, but an appeals court overturned the verdict and he died in 1967 before he could be retried.

Which Dallas dress manufacturer filmed the 26-second home movie that captured the Kennedy assassination?

Abraham Zapruder sold the film to Life magazine for $150,000 and gave $25,000 of it to the widow of the Dallas policeman shot dead the same afternoon.

Which future Shark Tank investor bought the Dallas Mavericks in January 2000?

Mark Cuban was a Mavericks season-ticket holder who bought the team with the fortune he made selling his streaming company Broadcast.com to Yahoo.

Which State Fair of Texas snack has the Fletcher family sold for generations?

Corn dogs, sold as Fletcher's Corny Dogs, came decades before the fair made a name for deep-frying almost anything, from a peanut butter sandwich to Coke.

Fair Park's Art Deco buildings were mostly built for which 1936 event?

The Texas Centennial Exposition went to Dallas, a city that did not exist during the 1836 revolution it celebrated, because Dallas offered the most cash and a ready-made fairground.

What greeting does Big Tex boom to State Fair of Texas visitors?

"Howdy, folks!" came a year late: Big Tex stood silent at his 1952 debut and was given a voice, along with a straightened nose, before the next fair.

Which mythical creature, in red neon atop the Magnolia Building, became a symbol of Dallas?

Pegasus began as an advertisement: the flying horse was the trademark of Magnolia Petroleum, later Mobil, which raised it over its own building in 1934.

What destroyed the original Big Tex in October 2012?

An electrical fire began at his base and climbed the frame on the last Friday of the 2012 fair, his 60th birthday year, yet a taller Big Tex reported for work in 2013.

The Red River Rivalry played at the Cotton Bowl each October pits Texas against which school?

Oklahoma and Texas meet in Dallas because it lies about halfway between their campuses, and the stadium is split at the 50-yard line so each school's fans fill one half.

The Cowboys left the Cotton Bowl in 1971 for Texas Stadium, in which Dallas suburb?

Irving's Texas Stadium, known for the hole in its roof left by an abandoned retractable design, was the team's home through 2008 and was imploded in 2010.

Which actor played the scheming J.R. on the TV series Dallas?

Larry Hagman first made his name in comedy, as the astronaut of the sitcom I Dream of Jeannie, before J.R. made him a villain.

Who shot J.R. in the 1980 cliffhanger of the TV series Dallas?

Kristin Shepard, J.R.'s sister-in-law and mistress, was unmasked eight months after the shots, and Mary Crosby, who played her, joked that it made her a trivia question.

The entire ninth season of Dallas was revealed to have been whose dream?

Pam Ewing's dream wiped out a whole season so that Patrick Duffy, whose character Bobby had been killed off a year earlier, could step out of her shower alive.

Which real ranch north of the city played the family home in the TV series Dallas?

Southfork Ranch, in the suburb of Parker, was built in 1970 as a private home called Duncan Acres; the show filmed its exteriors there, and it now sells tours to fans.

Which spin-off of Dallas premiered in 1979 and also ran 14 seasons?

Knots Landing followed Gary, J.R.'s black-sheep brother, to a California cul-de-sac, and the spin-off outlived its parent show by two years, ending in 1993.

Which team did the Mavericks beat for their only NBA title?

The Miami Heat had beaten Dallas in the 2006 Finals and started as favourites with LeBron James, but Dirk Nowitzki's Mavericks took the rematch in six games.

The Dallas Stars moved to Texas in 1993 from which US state?

Minnesota's North Stars kept half their name: the owner dropped 'North' for the move south, and 'Stars' happened to suit the Lone Star State.

Whose disputed goal won the Stars the 1999 Stanley Cup?

Brett Hull scored in triple overtime with his skate in the crease; the league ruled the goal good because he had kept possession, but Buffalo fans call the game 'No Goal'.

Which arena do the Mavericks and Stars share?

American Airlines Center opened in 2001 after Dallas voters narrowly approved public money for it, and both teams left Reunion Arena to move in.

The Texas Rangers, based in Arlington, were originally which franchise?

The Washington Senators were one out from winning their farewell home game in 1971 when fans stormed the field for souvenirs, one taking first base, and the game was forfeited.

Who coached the Cowboys for their first 29 seasons?

Tom Landry took the Cowboys to five Super Bowls and won two, yet he was dismissed in 1989 as soon as Jerry Jones bought the team.

The Dallas Cowboys have hosted a home game on which holiday almost every year since 1966?

Thanksgiving was a publicity play: with the young team struggling, president Tex Schramm volunteered to host so the Cowboys would be on national television every year.

Which nickname of the Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders became the title of their 2024 Netflix documentary series?

America's Sweethearts began as a 1972 makeover, when the team swapped its high-school cheerleaders for an adult dance squad trained by a Dallas dance teacher.

Dallas restaurateur Mariano Martinez built a machine in 1971 to serve which cocktail frozen, by the batch?

Margarita mix went into a soft-serve ice cream machine he adapted, and his original is now kept by the Smithsonian's National Museum of American History.

Jack Kilby invented the integrated circuit in 1958 while working at which Dallas company?

Texas Instruments had only just hired Kilby, so he had no vacation time and worked alone through the July 1958 shutdown, when the idea for the chip came to him.

Geophysical Service, a Dallas oil-prospecting firm, turned in World War II to detecting what?

Submarines could be tracked with the know-how it used to find oil, and the military electronics work that followed grew until the firm took a new name in 1951.

Which convenience-store chain began in Dallas in 1927 as an ice company?

7-Eleven stores were called Tote'm until 1946, when the company renamed them to advertise their long opening hours, from 7 in the morning to 11 at night.

Neiman Marcus's founders took $25,000 cash in 1907 rather than a stake in which then-young business?

The Coca-Cola company was then an unknown 'sugary soda pop business' to them, so the founders sold their Atlanta sales firm for cash and used it to open their Dallas store.

Highland Park Village, opened beside Dallas in 1931, became a national prototype for what?

The shopping center was meant to double as a town square, so its developers toured Spain, Mexico and California for ideas before settling on a Spanish design.

Which Dallas cosmetics founder rewarded her top sellers with pink Cadillacs?

Mary Kay Ash started the company in 1963 with $5,000 and her son's help in a small downtown Dallas storefront, and built it on a sales force of women working for themselves.

Deep Ellum, east of downtown, first became famous in the 1920s and 30s for what?

Jazz and blues clubs drew Blind Lemon Jefferson and Lead Belly to the district, whose name is simply how early residents pronounced 'Deep Elm', after Elm Street.

Klyde Warren Park, opened in 2012, is built over what?

A freeway, the Woodall Rodgers, still runs underneath: the park is a deck built over it, which joined downtown to the Uptown district on the far side.

Which architect designed the arched cable-stayed bridge that opened over the Trinity River in Dallas in 2012?

Santiago Calatrava was asked for three signature bridges across the river, but only two were built and the third was cancelled.

Which Dallas billionaire gave $10 million so the city's symphony hall would carry a colleague's name, not his own?

Ross Perot asked that the hall honour Morton Meyerson, the executive who had run his company EDS and led the ten-year drive to build it.

The Dallas Arboretum sits on the shore of which body of water?

White Rock Lake was built as a reservoir for the city's water supply, and the gardens on its shore began as the private estate of geologist Everette DeGolyer.

Which NCAA punishment hit Southern Methodist University's football programme in 1987 over payments to players?

The 'death penalty' cancelled SMU's whole 1987 season over a slush fund for paying players, and the school then chose to sit out 1988 as well.

DFW Airport, opened in 1974, is the second-largest US airport by land area behind which?

Denver alone is bigger, and DFW exists because federal regulators, tired of Dallas and Fort Worth running rival airports, ordered them in 1964 to agree on a shared site.

Which Dallas-born singer, a graduate of the city's arts magnet high school, is known as the 'Queen of Neo Soul'?

Erykah Badu was born Erica Wright and renamed herself as a young woman, in part because she regarded her birth name as a slave name.

Which outlaw from West Dallas was buried in the city in 1934?

Clyde Barrow and Bonnie Parker had wished to be buried side by side, but her family would not allow it, so each lies in a separate family plot in Dallas.

Which low-fare airline began flying from Dallas in 1971 and still has its headquarters in the city?

Southwest Airlines at first flew only between Texas cities, and within months it was selling $10 seats on a late flight that had been running empty.

A village called Dallas, sometimes proposed as the ultimate source of the Texas city's name, lies in which country?

Scotland's Dallas, a village in Moray, is only one candidate: the founder said merely that he named the town for 'my friend Dallas', and nobody is sure whom he meant.

Which Dallas oilman built his fortune on the East Texas leases he bought from 'Dad' Joiner in 1930?

H. L. Hunt struck the deal weeks after the discovery well came in, while Joiner was tangled in oversold shares, and paid for most of it out of the oil the leases produced.

During World War II, the Ford car plant in Dallas switched to building which military vehicle?

Jeeps and military trucks were all the plant made from 1942, part of the war work that turned Dallas from a minor manufacturing city into a major one.

At which hospital was President Kennedy pronounced dead about 30 minutes after being shot?

Parkland Memorial is where Kennedy died, where his accused assassin died two days later, and where, in 1967, the man who had shot the assassin died too.

How did Dallas police end their July 2016 standoff with the gunman who had killed five officers?

With a robot-delivered bomb, because the police chief said he 'saw no other option' hours into the standoff; experts called it the first lethal use of a robot by US police.

Which architect designed Dallas City Hall, the inverted-pyramid landmark completed in 1978?

I. M. Pei sloped the front outward at 34 degrees, each floor about nine feet wider than the one below, so the building shelters people approaching it from the Texas sun.

Which US president's library and museum opened on the SMU campus in Dallas in 2013?

George W. Bush's library was dedicated with all five living US presidents on stage, and he and Laura Bush have since chosen its grounds as their burial place.

In what kind of Oak Cliff building was Lee Harvey Oswald arrested about 80 minutes after Kennedy was shot?

A movie theater, the Texas Theatre, where police seized him for killing a patrolman; he was charged with murdering the president only the next day.

A grant from which steel magnate let Dallas open its first public library building in 1901?

Andrew Carnegie gave $50,000 after May Dickson Exall, who led the city's women's clubs, had raised the first funds locally and then asked him for the rest.