Dallas Municipal Archives

Dallas Municipal Archives Documenting and preserving the history of Dallas city government The Dallas Municipal Archives can be reached at (214) 670-5270.
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The purpose of the Archives is to preserve the historical records of city government and support research and scholarship by its external and internal customers. Established in 1985, the Dallas Municipal Archives is a division of the City Secretary´s Office and contains over 2,000 cubic feet of departmental records in a variety of forms and formats, including ledgers, manuscripts and typescripts,

maps, photographs, microforms, and printed materials. Among our many collections are the "Bonnie and Clyde" Barrow Gang materials of the Dallas Police Department; the John F. Kennedy/Dallas Police Department records relating to the assassination of President Kennedy; the earliest extant City of Dallas Charter; and over a quarter million images documenting the growth and public services of the City of Dallas. We also maintain thousands of permanently valuable documents, maps, and architectural plans reflecting the actions of every aspect of Dallas government.

The Dallas Municipal Archives pauses to remember the life of former Dallas City Council member Dr. Charles Tandy, who di...
09/26/2024

The Dallas Municipal Archives pauses to remember the life of former Dallas City Council member Dr. Charles Tandy, who died September 11. Tandy served on the Council 1987-1993, representing a portion of Oak Cliff. An anesthesiologist long connected to Methodist Hospital and a longtime booster of Oak Cliff, he led the Oak Cliff Chamber of Commerce and served the DFW Airport Board, Dallas Zoological Society, the Dallas County Heritage Society and Friends of Dallas Public Library.
The Municipal Archives offers condolences to his family and friends.




Let's donate, Y'all!Save the cool history
09/19/2024

Let's donate, Y'all!
Save the cool history

THANK YOU TO OUR DONORS!
Many thanks for North Texas Giving Day donations from Joseph Milazzo in memory of Lee Millazo, Jr, Colleen Brainerd, Curtis Carpenter, Daniel Huerta, Cathleen Mohrle, Marsha Leach, and Mike Judd!
As of 9am, we are now up to $400.00. Thank you and that's a wonderful start to Giving Day!
Let's keep up the great work!
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Your donations help save historic Dallas photography - like this unpublished image of Deep Ellum!

Dallas Municipal Archives

Football season has returned! In this flashback to Dallas Love Field and Dallas sports history, the Municipal Archives h...
09/09/2024

Football season has returned! In this flashback to Dallas Love Field and Dallas sports history, the Municipal Archives has uncovered images of Super Bowl VI champs the Dallas Cowboys on January 18, 1972, returning from their victory over the Miami Dolphins in New Orleans. The trophy was presented to the team at Love Field by members of the Dallas Chamber of Commerce on behalf of the City of Dallas.

From the Dallas Morning News: "Perhaps the most unlikely appearing person to step off the Cowboy plane was a quiet-looking elderly woman. She patiently followed Bob Lilly through all of the pushing, yelling and handshaking. "I'm Robert's mother," she explained. "I don't go to many out-of-town games but this one did seem important."
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Love Field photograph collection, Dallas Municipal Archives



Dallas Sports Commission

September 3, 1937 - Three days of Labor Day festivities began in Dallas, marking a visit by William Green, president of ...
09/03/2024

September 3, 1937 - Three days of Labor Day festivities began in Dallas, marking a visit by William Green, president of the American Federation of Labor (AFL). Green's first visit to the Southwest was marked by dances and balls, special Sunday services, a banquet in Green's honor at the Jefferson Hotel, a massive parade on Main Street, and an address to 15,000 labor union members in the Cotton Bowl.
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Issue of the Dallas Craftsman courtesy the The Portal to Texas History, University of North Texas. All other images from the Dallas Municipal Archives.

Thank you to all who came out for the WRR book launch event!  We had a super crowd, and Maple Landing treated us very we...
08/30/2024

Thank you to all who came out for the WRR book launch event! We had a super crowd, and Maple Landing treated us very well. Take care of your music and your archivists. 😀

Books are available in your local bookstores and via Arcadia Publishing and Amazon. Or you can pick one up from the Archives in person. Email us.

August 28, 2024 - Today in City Hall's Flag Room, the City of Dallas swore in new and returning administrative judges, m...
08/28/2024

August 28, 2024 - Today in City Hall's Flag Room, the City of Dallas swore in new and returning administrative judges, municipal judges, and associate municipal judges of Municipal Court. To commemorate this event, the Municipal Archives looks back at the investiture of the first African American municipal judge in Dallas, Louis A. Bedford. Judge Bedford (1926-2014) was on the bench from 1966 to 1980 and mentored many young attorneys and future judges.
Congratulations to all jurists.
City Photographer Collection, Dallas Municipal Archives

HAPPY 103, WRR 101!Your past, present, and future are all exciting!  Thank you for the laughs, information, and music.
08/05/2024

HAPPY 103, WRR 101!

Your past, present, and future are all exciting! Thank you for the laughs, information, and music.

Today is the 34th anniversary of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA).  President George H.W. Bush signed the ADA i...
07/26/2024

Today is the 34th anniversary of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). President George H.W. Bush signed the ADA into law on July 26, 1990. These images are from the Archives and show council members and wheelchair basketball teams.

City of Dallas Office of Equity and Inclusion

Happy Birthday, Van Cliburn!Born on this date, Fort Worth resident Van Cliburn (1934-2013) was a longtime friend of the ...
07/12/2024

Happy Birthday, Van Cliburn!
Born on this date, Fort Worth resident Van Cliburn (1934-2013) was a longtime friend of the City of Dallas' station WRR and made world headlines as a cultural diplomat through his winning the first International Tchaikovsky Competition in 1958.
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Cliburn gave liberally of his time to promote classical music in North Texas, and appeared at multiple events in support of the Friends of WRR. In these images from the WRR collection in the Dallas Municipal Archives, Van greets new subscribers and signs autographs.
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In 2019, archivists Kristi Nedderman and John Slate found an old reel to reel recording from 1967 of Van Cliburn performing Rachmaninoff's Piano Concerto No. 2 with the Dallas Symphony Orchestra at SMU's McFarlin Auditorium. This is the only known recording of the concert, and was only aired once on WRR in 1977. Listen to it here: https://soundcloud.com/classical-101-wrr/classical-1011-wrr-presents-cliburn-uncovered



Vive La Réunion!Sunday, July 14 is Bastille Day - the common name given to the national day of France, which is celebrat...
07/12/2024

Vive La Réunion!
Sunday, July 14 is Bastille Day - the common name given to the national day of France, which is celebrated on July 14th each year. It’s the anniversary of the Storming of the Bastille on 14 July 1789, a major event of the French Revolution. In Dallas, it’s a chance to celebrate the unique contributions of the French and French-allied colonists who arrived in Oak Cliff in 1855.
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About Reunion: In 1855, 200 French-speaking colonists arrived in Dallas and settled on 2,000 acres, calling it La Réunion. Victor Prosper Considérant founded the settlement and planned for it to be a loosely structured communal experiment under a system of direct democracy. Lasting for approximately 18 months and reaching a population peak of around 350 persons, La Réunion had financial, operational, and inter-personal issues almost from the beginning. Colonists began leaving, and the colony was officially dissolved in 1857. About half of the residents elected to move across the Trinity to the Town of Dallas, bringing artisans and tradesmen that the young town desperately needed.
Though the colony failed, traces of the colony and its citizens still exist in Dallas.
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Fishtrap Cemetery/French Colony Cemetery: Burial Place of French, Belgian, and Swiss settlers brought here 1855-58 by the Company for European American Colonization in Texas. This site was on the road from La Reunion to willow fish traps set by the colonists in the Trinity. Early burials in this cemetery include aged French grenadier Pere Lagogue, also a young child of colony director F. Cantagrel.
The cemetery also includes the Loupots, Reverchons, and Santerres.
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Reverchon Park: Established 1914 and named for Julien Reverchon, botanist. Julien came to Texas from Lyon, France when he was 18 with his father. They arrived at the La Reunion Colony in Dallas County in 1855 and resided there until the colony was disbanded. They then moved to a farm which was south of the colony townsite. His last ten years were spent as a professor of botany at the Baylor University College of Medicine and Pharmacy in Dallas. The city of Dallas named Reverchon Park in Julien's honor following his death.
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Cantegral Street: Named for François Marie Cantagrel, first director of the La Reunion community.
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Remond Street: Named for colonist Emile Remond, construction business and brick factory owner.
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Boll Street: Named for colonist Henri Boll, Swiss-born butcher and meat purveyor.
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Guillot Street: Named for colonist Maxime Guillot, carriage and wagon maker.
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Nussbaumer Street: Named for colonist Jacob Nussbaumer, Swiss butcher and East Dallas landowner.

Benjamin Long [Lang]: Swiss-born child of Reunion immigrants; served two terms as mayor of Dallas 1868-70 and 1872-74. On June 23, 1877, Long was shot and killed by a patron of a Dallas saloon who had not paid his bar bill.
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Images and documents from the collections of the Dallas Municipal Archives.


The Dallas Municipal Archives honors these officers.  We have a small collection concerned with this event that includes...
07/07/2024

The Dallas Municipal Archives honors these officers. We have a small collection concerned with this event that includes correspondence (sent to the mayor on behalf of these officers), speeches, and images.

The events of July 7, 2016, forever changed the Dallas Police Department and our city.

Today, we pause to remember the sacrifice our brothers made while protecting our city, courageously and with honor.

We carry on their legacy by serving our city with dignity and fairness.

We will never forget.

Sgt. Michael Smith

Senior Corporal Lorne Ahrens

Officer Michael Krol

Officer Patricio Zamarripa

DART Officer Brent Thompson

On this day in 1919, the Texas Senate ratified the national amendment granting women the right to vote. Texas was the fi...
06/28/2024

On this day in 1919, the Texas Senate ratified the national amendment granting women the right to vote. Texas was the first Southern state to ratify the Nineteenth Amendment and the ninth in the nation. By August of 1920, 36 states (including Texas) approved the amendment and it became part of the United States Constitution. Today women outnumber men as registered voters in Texas. (from the The Portal to Texas History)
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Dallas' very own historical marker honoring suffrage is in City Park adjacent to Millermore, the plantation home of William Brown Miller (1807-1899). In 1855-62 he built this house on his farm east of Dallas. His twelfth child, Minerva (1865-1960), inherited the house and named it Millermore. Her husband, Barry Miller (1864-1933), was a Lieutenant Governor of Texas. The house was dismantled in 1966 and reconstructed in City Park in 1969.



Celebrate and Remember - Juneteenth 2024Please enjoy this re-post from 2020. How many of these sites have you visited?
06/18/2024

Celebrate and Remember - Juneteenth 2024
Please enjoy this re-post from 2020. How many of these sites have you visited?

OTD in 1971, Southwest Airlines took to the skies for the first time out of our own Dallas Love Field!  From the "LOVE b...
06/18/2024

OTD in 1971, Southwest Airlines took to the skies for the first time out of our own Dallas Love Field! From the "LOVE bites" snacks to the go-go boot-wearing flight attendants, Southwest changed commerical flying in the 1970s. The partnership between Love Field and Southwest Airlines has been a vital part of both Dallas and aviation history.

Thanks to everyone who made out to the Dallas Park and Recreation Department's Summer Kick-off at City Park!  I enjoyed ...
06/10/2024

Thanks to everyone who made out to the Dallas Park and Recreation Department's Summer Kick-off at City Park! I enjoyed chatting about Old City Park history, city history, and all the other topics we covered.

Don't forget that your Municipal Archives is open to researchers. Drop us a line, and we will help you with answering your questions, making an appointment, and pointing you in the right direction.

06/06/2024

Today, we mark the 80th anniversary of the landing on the Normandy beaches - D-Day. This clip is the first information shared by WRR-AM hosts (extant now as WRR-FM only) on events in France. German news claimed events occurred that the Allied forces had not yet announced.

From the US's entry into the war in 1941, WRR provided non-revenue programming on military recruitment, war bond sales, and other related topics.

We have a variety of sound bites and reels of WRR programming in the Archives. This particular snippet was shared by Chris Huff; we thank him!

OTD in 1969:  Union Station opened in 1916, and its last privately-operated passenger train left Union Station.  The Dal...
05/31/2024

OTD in 1969: Union Station opened in 1916, and its last privately-operated passenger train left Union Station. The Dallas Union Terminal Company sold the station and the tracks to the City of Dallas in 1974. Today, the tracks handle Dallas Area Rapid Transit (DART) light rail, and Trinity Railway Express commuter trains. The structure, known as Eddie Bernice Johnson Union Station, is a Dallas Landmark and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. The second floor is available as a rental space.

May 23, 2024 is the 90th anniversary of the end of a 21-month crime spree by American bandits and serial murderers Clyde...
05/23/2024

May 23, 2024 is the 90th anniversary of the end of a 21-month crime spree by American bandits and serial murderers Clyde Barrow, Bonnie Parker, and their gang.
Among the most heavily used and requested collections in the Dallas Municipal Archives, the Bonnie and Clyde materials in the Dallas Police Department Historic Case Files and related collections are a perennial source of interest for students of local history.
The collection is available on the The Portal to Texas History here:
https://texashistory.unt.edu/explore/collections/BCM/
To highlight our collections we have developed a tour of sites in Dallas associated with the Barrow Gang.
https://arcg.is/1WKzD1
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Please note that most of these sites are private property. Barrow gas station was demolished in April 2022.
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This is a work in progress!








A sub-series of the Dallas Police Department Historical Records and Case Files collection, these materials relate to the Clyde Barrow gang and law enforcement officials'...

The Dallas Municipal Archives salutes all winners of this year's Preservation Dallas Preservation Achievement Awards, bu...
05/22/2024

The Dallas Municipal Archives salutes all winners of this year's Preservation Dallas Preservation Achievement Awards, but especially the City of Dallas-connected DeGolyer Estate, Juanita Craft House, and the Willis Winters Park Pavilion. Special thanks to retiring Chief Preservation Planner Kate Singleton, recipient of the 2024 Dorothy Savage Award. Congratulations everyone!
Photos courtesy Dallas Municipal Archives and City of Austin (Singleton)
City of Dallas Office of Historic Preservation
Preservation Dallas


Address

1500 Marilla Street
Dallas, TX
75201

Opening Hours

Monday 9am - 4:30pm
Tuesday 9am - 4:30pm
Wednesday 9am - 4:30pm
Thursday 9am - 4:30pm
Friday 9am - 4:30pm

Telephone

+12146705270

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