About This Blog

This blog features: neighborhood restaurants, nearby restaurants, downtown restaurants, Casa View Shopping Center, nearby shopping, Downtown shops.

I will first list places and my connections with them. For the spirit of completeness, I will then list other places, known to me but not visited. I choose not to list the unknown.

I like the section entitled Places I Wish I Had Visited.

My focus is places and locations which existed from 1953, when I moved to Dallas, until 1965, when I graduated from high school. This list will continue with my college years, until I turned 21. I left Dallas in 1969 and, as I did not return except to visit my parents until 1973, my memory of East Dallas ends at that time.

Some categories were easy to separate – restaurants and shopping. Some experiences are not so easy to categorize, but are still meaningful. They may be all lumped in together, and then teased out as other connections are made.

Music wise, we may have thought we were born of the “wrong generation.” I always thought the older generation (i.e. 3 to 4 years older than me) had a richer and deeper experience.

But we, the beginning of the Baby Boomer generation, had it best – stable family life, rising expectations for the middle class and parents who wanted to give so much to their children, which most did not have in their childhood. We were left to play and roam outdoors to make our own fun. We had the best toys and the best music.

And yet we lived in tumultuous times – the Cold War, Civil Rights, Integration and the Kennedy Assassination through the killings of Robert Kennedy and Martin Luther King.

Hopefully we came out as loving, caring, sharing adults whose experiences made us better people and gave us the ability to show appreciation and gratitude for the neighborhood and experiences which enriched us and our loved ones.

Monday, December 31, 2012

White Rock Railroad History - "Those Trains Kept-a-Comin'"

Charles M. Mizell Jr., treasurer of the Southwest Railroad Historical Society, read a story on how residents at the railroad whistle stop of Reinhardt organized the first White Rock area school.
In a very interesting letter, he gave a detailed history of the railroad line around which the town of Reinhardt grew.  Below is a partial reprint of his letter for those interested in the history of White Rock:
"The Gulf, Colorado and Santa Fe Railway was opened for operation on November 1, 1886.  When built, this line was offered cash bonuses from Paris of $10,000; Honey Grove of $12,500; and Farmersville of $15,000.

It was completed to Paris in the summer of 1887.  The Frisco connection at Paris was the most direct route between Dallas and St. Louis, and at one time direct Pullman cars to Houston and other South Texas points were routed over this line.

Passenger business gradually declined and the last passenger train was run on February 14, 1956.
In the late 1930s, the Louisiana and Arkansas Railroad got trackage rights of the line from Farmersville to Dallas.  They still retain these rights, although they have been absorbed by the Kansas City Southern Lines, and their equipment is still lettered accordingly.

The railroad overcame a 'Main Line' on December 5, 1955, when the 'new line' was built from Zacha Junction (Northwest Highway and Garland Road) to 50 miles northwest to the Santa Fe main line some eight miles north of Denton.  This line was built at a cost of about $10 million of the railroad's OWN money - no subsidies - to serve Dallas with better freight and passenger service.

It was the largest railroad construction job in the United States in 25 years.  White Rock Station on Jupiter Road north of Northwest Highway opened at that time to provide convenient through service to Oklahoma City, Kansas City and Chicago.

While the old Paris Branch now has every-other-day freight service, the growth in the Reinhardt and Garland areas calls for a switch engine - known as the Garland switcher - on a daily basis.  The line also provides a through passenger train 'The Texas Chief' each way daily and a through freight to the north.

So while the old station and community at Reinhardt have about been forgotten, the railroad which was responsible for their birth is still an important and vital part of the area."
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