Dallas tourist information

The primary mode of local transportation in the city is the automobile. Efforts to diversify including the construction of light rail lines, biking and walking paths, wider sidewalks, and more efficient public transportation are currently major priorities of the city and its residents. The city is much like other United States cities developed primarily in the late 20th century—criss-crossed by a vast network of highways which has led to and contributes to Dallas being a very low-density city.

Wagon Wheels
The city of Dallas is at the confluence of a large number of major interstate highways—Interstates 20, 30, 35E, and 45 all run through the city. The city's freeway system, as it has no major geographical inhibitors surrounding it, is set up in the popular hub-and-spoke system, much like a wagon wheel. Starting from downtown Dallas, there is the main downtown freeway loop, Interstate 635/20 Lyndon B. Johnson loop, and ultimately the tolled President George Bush Turnpike. Inside these freeway loops are other partially-limited-access and parkway-style loops including Loop 12 and Belt Line Road. Another beltway around the city is planned upwards of 46.50 miles (70 km) from downtown in Collin County. Radiating out of downtown as the spokes of the system are Interstates 30, 35E, and 45, US 75, US 175, TX Spur 366, the tolled Dallas North Tollway, and further out TX 114, US 80 and US 67. Other major highways within the city that do not serve primarily as spokes include TX 183 and TX Spur 408. The recently completed interchange between Interstate 635 and Central Expressway called the High Five is one of the most impressive freeway interchanges in the United States.

DART
Dallas Area Rapid Transit (DART) is the Dallas area public transportation authority, providing buses, rail, and HOV lanes. DART began operating the first light rail system in the Southwest United States in 1996 and continues to expand its coverage. Currently, two light rail lines are in service. The red line travels through Oak Cliff, downtown, Uptown, north Dallas, Richardson and Plano. The blue line goes through south Dallas, downtown, Uptown, north Dallas, and Garland. The red and blue lines are conjoined in between 8th & Corinth Station in Oak Cliff and Mockingbird Station in north Dallas. The two lines service Cityplace Station, the only subway station in the Southwest.

Fort Worth's smaller public transit system, The T, connects with Dallas's via a commuter rail line, the Trinity Railway Express, connecting downtown Dallas's Union Station with downtown Fort Worth's T&P Station and several points in between. The system of light rail transit, especially through downtown, has skyrocketed land values and has sparked a residential boom in downtown.

Airports
Dallas is served by two commercial airports: Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport (known as DFW International) and Dallas Love Field. In addition, Dallas Executive Airport (formerly Redbird Airport), is a general aviation airport located within the city limits, and Addison Airport is another general aviation airport located just outside the city limits in the suburb of Addison. Two more general aviation airports are located in the outer suburb of McKinney, and on the west side of the Metroplex, two general aviation airports are in Fort Worth.

Going on a trip? Why not browse some of the luggage at eBags.com ^{(external source)}

DFW International Airport is located in the suburbs north of and equidistant to downtown Fort Worth and downtown Dallas. In terms of size, DFW is the largest airport in the state, the second largest in the United States, and third largest in the world. In terms of traffic, DFW is the busiest in the state, third busiest in the United States, and sixth busiest in the world. Love Field is located within the city limits of Dallas, 6 miles (10 km) northwest of downtown, and is headquarters to Southwest Airlines.

Your vacation. A time to lose yourself. And sometimes your luggage, too. Need Travel Insurance? Why not try Travel Guard ^{(external source)}

Native Americans inhabited the Dallas area before it was claimed, along with the rest of Texas, as a part of the Spanish Province of New Spain in the 1500s. The area was very close to French territory, but the boundary was carried upward a bit in 1819 with the Adams-Onís Treaty. Present-day Dallas remained under Spanish rule until 1821, when Mexico declared independence from Spain. Dallas joined the new nation, and became part of the state of Coahuila y Tejas. The Republic of Texas broke off from Mexico in 1836 (and remained an independent country for nearly 10 years); and this is when Dallas's development began.

Meet My Friend Dallas
The city of Dallas was founded by John Neely Bryan in 1841 after first surveying the area in 1839. Bryan, who shared Sam Houston's insight into the wisdom of Native American customs, must also have realized that these Caddo trails intersected at one of the few natural fords for hundreds of miles along the wide Trinity floodplain. Dallas County was established in 1846 and was named after George Mifflin Dallas, who was the eleventh United States Vice President at the time. However, the origin of the city's name is debatable; Bryan stated only that it was named "after my friend Dallas".

Can't Buy Me Love
Dallas was formally incorporated as a town in 1856. The city had a few slaves, mostly brought by settlers from Alabama and Georgia. It was a fairly insignificant place until after the American Civil War in which it was part of the Confederate States of America, and only legally became a city in 1871. The city paid the Houston and Central Texas Railroad US$5,000 to shift its route 20 miles (32 km) to the west and build its north-south tracks through Dallas, rather than through Corsicana as planned. A year later, Dallas leaders could not pay the Texas and Pacific Railroad to locate there, so they devised a way to trick the Railroad—Dallas had a rider attached to a state law which required the railroad to build its tracks through Browder Springs—which turned out to be just south of Main Street. The major north-south and east-west Texas railroad routes intersected in Dallas in 1873, thus ensuring its future as a commercial center.

Drugs and Alcohol
By the turn of the twentieth century Dallas was the leading drug, book, jewelry, and wholesale liquor market in the Southwestern United States. It also quickly became the center of trade in cotton, grain, and even buffalo. It was the world's leading inland cotton market, and it still led the world in manufacture of saddlery and cotton gin machinery. As it further entered the 20th century, Dallas transformed from an agricultural center to a center of banking, insurance, and other businesses.

Oil, Electronics and Assassination
In 1930, oil was discovered 100 miles (160 km) east of Dallas and the city quickly became the financial center for the oil industry in Texas and Oklahoma. Then in 1958 the integrated circuit was invented in Dallas by Jack Kilby of Texas Instruments. During the 1950s and 1960s, Dallas became the nation's third-largest technology center, with the growth of such companies as Ling-Tempco-Vought (LTV Corporation) and Texas Instruments. In 1957 two developers, Trammell Crow and John M. Stemmons, opened a Home Furnishings Mart that grew into the Dallas Market Center, the largest wholesale trade complex in the world. On 22 November 1963, President John F. Kennedy was assassinated on Elm Street while his motorcade passed through Dealey Plaza in downtown Dallas.

Who Shot J.R.?
In the 1970s and 1980s, Dallas underwent the building boom which produced a distinctive contemporary profile for the downtown area and a prominent skyline, influenced by nationally acclaimed architects. By the 1980s, when the oil industry mostly relocated to Houston, Dallas was beginning to benefit from a burgeoning technology boom (driven by the growing computer and telecom industries), while continuing to be a center of banking and business. Also in the mid-to-late 1980s, many banks, especially in Dallas, collapsed during the Savings and Loan crisis, nearly destroying the city's economy and scrapping plans for hundreds of structures. Because of the immense worldwide success of the hit television series Dallas, the city became one of the most internationally recognizable U.S cities during the 80s. In the 1990s, Dallas became known as Texas's Silicon Valley, or the "Silicon Prairie."

Uptown is Hot
Like many major US cities, Dallas has experienced an "urban renewal" in the 2000s. From 1988 to 2005, not a single high-rise structure was built within the downtown freeway loop. In 2005, three towers began construction amid tens of residential conversions and smaller residential projects. By the year 2010, the North Central Texas Council of Governments expects 10,000 residents to live within the loop. Just north, Uptown is one of the hottest real estate markets in the country.