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.
-
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.
-
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.
-
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.
-
Cantegral Street: Named for François Marie Cantagrel, first director of the La Reunion community.
-
Remond Street: Named for colonist Emile Remond, construction business and brick factory owner.
-
Boll Street: Named for colonist Henri Boll, Swiss-born butcher and meat purveyor.
-
Guillot Street: Named for colonist Maxime Guillot, carriage and wagon maker.
-
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.
-
Images and documents from the collections of the Dallas Municipal Archives.
Documenting and preserving the history of Dallas city government The Dallas Municipal Archives can be reached at (214) 670-5270.
