Dallas

The second largest city in Texas, after Houston, and eighth largest in the United States, Dallas is one of the most important commercial, financial, and distribution centres of the south-west, and Dallas is also a major regional manufacturing centre. With the nearby city of Fort Worth (to the west), it forms the hub of a major metropolitan region of the United States.

Dallas has a diversified economic base. Leading employers include the manufacturing, retail, and wholesale trades and the finance and insurance industries. Among the city's most important manufactured goods are electronic and electrical equipment, transport equipment, processed foods, and publishing and printed materials. The leading banking centre of the south-west, it is the site of a district Federal Reserve bank. The city is also the headquarters for a number of large insurance and oil companies, and the site for regional offices of many federal agencies. Dallas serves as the distribution and shipping centre for oil and natural gas, and for the agricultural and mineral products of the surrounding region, including cotton, cereals, livestock, and fruit. Among the area's three airports, the Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport, midway between Dallas and Fort Worth, is one of the largest in area in the world, and it is among the busiest in the United States.

Dallas covers about 608 sq km (378 sq mi), containing a substantial number of parks and greenbelts. The city's prominent museums are the Dallas Museum of Art (1903) and the Dallas Museum of Natural History (1936). The Deep Ellum (Deep Elm) district was the business centre of adjacent black neighbourhoods following the American Civil War. A thriving district until the 1930s (blues singer Leadbelly performed in its clubs) which recently experienced a revitalization, its Pythian Temple (1916) was state headquarters for the Black Knights of the Pythias and a community centre, designed by the black architect William Sidney Pittman (son-in-law of Booker T. Washington). Texas Stadium is the home of the Dallas Cowboys American football team. The Dallas Mavericks basketball team and Dallas Stars ice hockey team play at Reunion Arena.

The city's institutions of higher education include Southern Methodist University (1911), Dallas Baptist University (1965), and the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas (1943). The University of Dallas (1956), in nearby Irving, the University of Texas (1969), in nearby Richardson, and over a dozen other colleges and universities are in the metropolitan region. Dallas is the home of the Dallas Symphony Orchestra and Dallas Opera. The Dallas Theater Center (1959) is the only theatre designed by architect Frank Lloyd Wright, and the Morton H. Meyerson Symphony Center (1989) was designed by I. M. Pei.

The French regularly visited the area to trade with the Anadrako people in the 1700s, but the site of Dallas was first settled by whites in 1841 by John Neely Bryan; his original log cabin has been restored and is now located in a city park. Five years later a village was established with the name Dallas adopted in honor of US Vice President George Dallas. Early growth was slow, but was aided by the arrival in 1858 of French and Swiss artisans from nearby La Rйunion, a failed cooperative colony. The arrival of several railways in the early 1870s linked Texas for the first time with major points east, west and north, and stimulated economic activity in Dallas. By 1890 it was the largest city in Texas. Agricultural trade, which was dominated by cotton, was especially successful during the first third of the 20th century. In the same period finance and insurance became critically important to the city's growth, and Dallas bankers pioneered the practice of financing new drilling using oil reserves as collateral. In 1930 the huge East Texas oilfield was discovered south-east of the city and Dallas became a major centre of the petroleum industry. The period of most pronounced economic and population growth began after 1950 with the rapid expansion of manufacturing and distribution activities. In November 1963 the city was the site of the assassination of US President John F. Kennedy. Population (1980) 904,078; (1990) 1,006,877.