Dallas
Attractions
Conspiracy Museum
Polls have repeatedly shown that less than 15% of the American
population believes that Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone in
assassinating JFK, making the maverick Conspiracy Museum an
intriguing foil to the Sixth Floor Museum.
The Conspiracy Museum posits that Kennedy's assassination was a
coup d'état to shore up the military-industrial complex that had
been gaining strength in the US since WWII, and that the same people
and forces that killed Kennedy were later responsible for the deaths
of Robert Kennedy, Martin Luther King Jr, Ted Kennedy's
Chappaquiddick friend Mary Jo Kopechne (Ted himself was the real
target) and the 269 people aboard Korean Airlines Flight 007, shot
down in 1983.
The museum also delves into other assassinations from history,
including those of American presidents Abraham Lincoln, James
Garfield and William McKinley.
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Dallas Arts District
In the Dallas Arts District, a 60ac (24ha) section north of
downtown dedicated to the fine and performing arts, you'll find
landmarks such as the dramatic IM Pei-designed Morton H Meyerson
Symphony Center; the Trammel Crow Center Pavilion, with exhibition
and performance spaces; and the Dallas Theater Center. Sometime
early in the 21st century, the open space between DMA and the
Meyerson Center will be transformed into a sculpture garden
showcasing the world's greatest privately held sculpture collection,
which will be the crowning touch of an arts district that puts
Dallas in the big leagues among US art centres.
The Dallas Museum of Art (DMA), anchor of the Arts District, is
divided into five sections: the Americas, Africa, Asia and the
Pacific, Europe, and Contemporary Art. The collection's highlights
include Very Ugly by Frida Kahlo, Sleepy Baby by Mary
Cassatt, The Icebergs by Frederic Edwin Church, Monet's 1908
Water Lilies and more pieces by Piet Mondrian than any other
US museum. A special gallery recreates the French Riviera villa of
art patrons Wendy and Emery Reves, originally built in 1927 by the
Duke of Westminster for Coco Chanel. The Reves' collection on
display includes works by Van Gogh, Cézanne, Toulouse-Lautrec and
Manet, as well as by Winston Churchill, a good friend of the couple.
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Deep Ellum
A renovated warehouse district just three blocks east of
downtown, Deep Ellum has long been Dallas' headquarters for live
music - first the blues and now rock, jazz, alternative, Latin and
country, too. At the turn of the century, the district was the
centreof Dallas' black community. Leadbelly and Blind Lemon
Jefferson are just two of the blues artists who made their mark in
Deep Ellum during the 1920s and 1930s.
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Fair Park
Southeast of downtown Dallas, Fair Park was created in 1936 when
Dallas hosted the Texas Centennial Exposition. Today, more than 3
million people attend Fair Park's annual Texas State Fair, one of
the largest in the US, in September and October. Aside from being a
great place to party, picnic or stretch your legs, Fair Park has a
couple of knockout museums: the hands-on Science Place bills itself
as 'an amusement park for your brain.' Attractions include robotic
dinosaurs, a medical gallery featuring a human brain and real
beating heart, plus a planetarium and IMAX theatre. The
African-American Museum is one of the best museums of its kind, with
exhibits richly detailing the art and history of blacks from
pre-slavery Africa through today.
Fair Park is full of superb 1930s art deco architecture, but
nothing is quite as inspired as the Hall of State, a tribute to all
things Texan. The Hall of Heroes pays homage to such luminaries as
Stephen F Austin and Sam Houston, while the Great Hall of Texas
features a 25ft (8m) state seal and murals depicting Texas history
from the 16th century onward.
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Sixth Floor Museum
Dallas will forever be known as the city where President John F
Kennedy was shot, and the sites associated with his death are among
Dallas' most visited attractions. If you have time to visit only
one, make it the Sixth Floor Museum, a thoughtful, comprehensive
tribute to the life, death and legacy of JFK.
The museum bgins with the go-go days of 1960, when JFK proclaimed
in his inaugural address, 'Let the word go forth ... that the torch
has been passed to a new generation', and the tempestuous times that
followed.
With that background in place, the museum explains in
minute-by-minute detail the events of 22 November 1963. Artefacts
include the original layout for the front page of that afternoon's
Dallas Times Herald, stills from the famous home movie filmed
by Abraham Zapruder, a teletype machine endlessly reprinting the
first report of the murder and an FBI model of the assassination
site.
But the most evocative exhibit is the corner window overlooking
Dealey Plaza, the grassy knoll and the triple underpass: the same
vista suspected gunman Lee Harvey Oswald had on that fateful
November day.
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Dallas
Off the Beaten Track
Arlington
Arlington is home to one of the oldest and biggest US theme
parks. Six Flags Over Texas can be a lot of fun or a wretched
drag - it all depends on how crowded the place is when you go.
Home to the hot new ride, Mr Freeze - the tallest and fastest
roller coaster in Texas - the park's about a 20-minute drive
southwest of downtown Dallas.
The green sweep of sun-dappled grass at the Ballpark in
Arlington is so beautiful it just might bring tears to your
eyes. Opened in 1994, the ballpark is an imposing neo-Romanesque
structure designed to include plenty of stone carvings of
longhorn steer and the Texas lone star emblem. Home to the Texas
Rangers baseball team, the stadium offers tours of the dugout,
batting cages and press box, and on non-game days you can also
see the clubhouse, with its terrific collection of baseball
movie posters, and peek into the big-league ball players' inner
sanctum.
From Babe Ruth's jersey to Willie Mays' shoes, the stadium's
stellar Legends of the Game Museum includes the largest
collection of memorabilia ever loaned by the National Baseball
Hall of Fame Museum at Cooperstown, New York. Upstairs, a
learning centre puts a fun baseball spin on math, science,
geography and more.
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Fort Worth
Dallas and its twin, Fort Worth, anchor the most populous
region in Texas. Although the cities are only 30mi (48km) apart,
closely linked by growth and geography, they offer two distinct
takes on the Texas experience. If Dallas is skyscrapers, Fort
Worth is streetscapes: the awesome mural of the Chisholm Trail
(the famous cattle trail that once wound from San Antonio,
Texas, north to Abilene, Kansas) at Sundance Square, the
hitching posts of the Stockyards, the cobblestones of old Camp
Bowie Blvd. Fort Worth is proud of its Cowtown nickname, but the
livestock industry is just a small part of what's happening here
these days.
Fort Worth found fame during the great open-range cattle
drives, which lasted from the 1860s to the 1880s. More than 10
million head of cattle trooped through the city during the
Chisholm Trail days. When the railroad arrived in 1873,
stockyards were established at Fort Worth and many drovers chose
to end the trek here. Outlaws Robert Leroy Parker and Harry
Longbaugh - better known as Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid -
spent a lot of time hiding out in a part of downtown known as
Hell's Half Acre; Depression-era hold-up artists Bonnie Parker
and Clyde Barrow also spent time in the city. Most of the mayhem
of Fort Worth's wild days, however, came from rank-and-file
cowboys who boozed and brawled through town, giving Fort Worth a
far different image than that of God-fearing Dallas. The cattle
business remained the top industry in Fort Worth through the
1920s, even as major finds in nearby fields turned the city into
an important operations centre for the oil industry.
For years the heart of Fort Worth, the Stockyards National
Historic District remains popular with visitors and residents.
What was once the centre of the ranching industry is now mostly
an entertainment and shopping district, though a bit of cattle
business still takes place. Known as 'Wall Street of the West,'
the Fort Worth Livestock Exchange includes a museum of photos
and memorabilia from the heyday of Fort Worth's cattle industry.
Sundance Square, a 14-block area, is one of the most vibrant
downtown districts in Texas. The renaissance started in the
early 1980s with the openings of the Worthington Hotel and the
Caravan of Dreams nightclub, and it continues with a constant
influx of new restaurants, shops, colourful street-level
architecture and plenty of public art - most notably the trompe
l'oeil Chisholm Trail mural.
Most visitors to Fort Worth arrive at DFW International
Airport, 17 miles (27km) east of Fort Worth, but Fort Worth
Meacham Airport is a good alternative for in-state travel from
Austin, Houston and San Antonio. Greyhound buses and Amtrak
trains also service Fort Worth, 30 miles (48km) west of Dallas
via I-30. A bus ride between the two takes less than an hour.
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Southfork Ranch
Southfork Ranch was the location of Dallas, one of
television's longest-running dramas (it lasted 13 years). See
the gun that shot JR, the 1978 Lincoln Continental that Jock
drove and a little deli called Miss Elie's Place, where you can
'eat like the Ewings used to'.
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Dallas
Activities
The longest bicycling and hiking trail is the 27km
(17-mi) path around White Rock Lake. A 5km (3-mi) trail
circles Bachman Lake. Trinity Trails is a network of hiking,
biking and equestrian trails covering 56km (35mi) along the
Trinity River, Sycamore Creek and Marine Creek. It can be
accessed from most of Fort Worth's major parks, including
Heritage Park, where you can rent equipment for canoeing,
kayaking or pedal boating.
Dallas
History
In 1839, John Neely Bryan, a Tennessee lawyer with a
healthy case of wanderlust, stumbled onto the three
forks of the Trinity River, a site he thought had the
makings of a good trading post and maybe a town. Bryan
eventually built a cabin and sketched out a town. Dallas
County was created in 1846; both city and town were
named for George Mifflin Dallas, a Pennsylvanian who
served as US vice president under James Polk.
Dallas grew slowly for the next 30 years, though not
for a lack of trying. From its start, Dallas had a flair
for self promotion, and Bryan saw to it the city was
placed on maps before there was much of a town. A group
of French artists and intellectuals arrived in the 1850s
to establish an artists' colony known as La Réunion just
west of the fledgling city. The community did not last,
but some of its members stayed, their presence giving
Dallas a sophisticated edge on the frontier.
In the 1870s, at a Dallas legislator's suggestion,
the state decided Dallas would be the junction for the
north-south Missouri, Kansas & Texas rail line and the
east-west Texas & Pacific Railroad. The first train
arrived in 1872, sparking a boom that ensured Dallas'
pre-eminence as a trade centre. Merchants from New York,
Chicago, Boston and St Louis invested heavily in the
city.
By 1920, with cotton prices soaring, land values had
climbed to
300.00 an acre. And when the
East Texas Oil Field was struck in 1930, Dallas became
the financial centre for the oil industry.
In the post-WWII era, Dallas continued to build on
its reputation as a citadel of commerce. The 1950s were
marked by the rise of pioneering high-tech company Texas
Instruments, creators of many advances including the
integrated circuit computer chip, the first single-chip
microprocessor and the first electronic hand-held
calculator.
Dallas' image took a dive when President John F
Kennedy was assassinated during a November 1963 visit to
the city. Gradually, however, the city reclaimed its
Texas swagger with help from a few new chest-thumping
sources of civic pride. The Dallas Cowboys won the first
of five Super Bowl titles in 1972, and their success on
the field - coupled with the popularity of the skimpily
attired Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders - helped earn the
Cowboys the unofficial title of 'America's Team'.
DFW International Airport opened in 1973, and the
city hosted the 1984 Republican National Convention. And
then came that little ol' namesake TV show, the
top-rated series in the US from 1980 to 1982.
The long hot summer of '98 again brought Dallas into
the news, with temperatures of at least 38°C (100°F) for
29 consecutive days, widespread crop failures and over
100 deaths. Otherwise, the city continues to prosper,
having merged through urban sprawl with Fort Worth to
anchor a region of about five million people - the most
populous in the Lone Star state.
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