Pacific Avenue: Watch for Trains! — ca. 1917
by Paula Bosse
Too close for comfort…
by Paula Bosse
Some people don’t realize that Pacific Avenue used to be lined with the railroad tracks of the Texas & Pacific Railway (hence the name “Pacific”). When trains weren’t barreling down Pacific regularly, the thoroughfare was used by non-locomotive traffic like pedestrians, bicycles, horses, and automobiles. When a huge cinder-spewing train screamed through, everything came to a resigned halt until it passed by. I can’t even imagine what that was like. I wonder how many times people, horses, vehicles, etc. didn’t manage to get out of the way in time?
When Union Station opened in 1916, trains that had previously run through the central business district now went around it (which probably cut the number of people rushed to the hospital with train-related injuries substantially).
The photo above shows Pacific looking east from N. Akard, as a blur of a train whooshes by. The Independent Auto Supply Co. (300 N. Akard) is at the left, and, at the right, the back side of Elm Street businesses, including Cullum & Boren and, to its left, the Jefferson Theater, with “Pantages” painted on the side. (The Jefferson was the Dallas home of the Pantages Vaudeville Circuit from 1917 until 1920, the year the Pantages people bugged out for the greener pastures of the Hippodrome, leaving the Jefferson to start a new relationship with the Loew’s circuit people. At the end of 1925, the Jefferson Theater was actually renamed the Pantages Theater. …Kind of confusing.)
Below, Elm Street in 1918 — what the other side of those buildings looked like. Cullum & Boren’s “CB” logo can be seen painted on the side of its building. (Click photo for much larger image.)
But back to Pacific in its scary, sooty, T&P-right-of-way days. This is what things looked like in 1909.
Fast-forward to 1920 — the trains had long stopped running, but the tracks remained, an eyesore and an impediment to traffic. (Cullum & Boren, again, at the right.)
And another one.
Thanks to the Kessler Plan, those unsightly tracks were finally removed from Pacific in 1923. Below, a photo from 1925. Big difference. Thanks, George Kessler!
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Sources & Notes
Top photo (by Frank Rogers) from the book The Park Cities, A Photohistory by Diane Galloway (Dallas: Diane Galloway, 1989). The photo is credited to John Stull/R. L. Goodson, Jr., Inc./Consulting Engineers.
More info on the 1918 photo of Elm Street, which was featured in the post “Dallas’ Film Row — 1918,” here.
More info on the super-sooty Pacific Avenue photo, here.
More on the de-track-ified Pacific, here.
Not sure of the source of the first 1920 photo; the second 1920 photo is from Legacies, Fall 1990, here.
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Copyright © 2016 Paula Bosse. All Rights Reserved.
Flashback : Dallas 
For many years the T&P freight station survived on Pacfic at Griffin. It was later torn down to become part of “Herald Square” in front of KRLD and beside the Times-Herald Building.
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Thanks for the info, Bob!
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Traveling shows took advantage of the Pacific Avenue right-of-way. Baggage cars could be spotted at the back of the Majestic Theatre and scenery and props could unloaded directly backstage.
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Very handy!
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I’m probably not seeing the forest for the trees here, but does anyone else wonder what kind of a bicycle-like contraption the gent in the foreground of the first photo above is riding?
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You’re not alone, Bob! I was wondering the same thing!
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I should have googled a little longer before posting. His bike has a Smith Motor Wheel for auxiliary (non-human) propulsion. It’s an attachable wheel, complete with its own small gasoline engine, a brain wave of circa 1914.
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My comment has to do with the gorgeous Medical Arts Building in the left background of the photo from 1925 – oh how I wish that building were still here !
I have such fond memories of it when my mother worked in the Republic Tower next door in the 70’s and 80’s – when I was a kid I used to go downtown and sit at the ice cream counter in the pharmacy and the ladies all knew me and my favorite orders. The murals and art work in that Art Deco building were incredible.
So sad that bit of history is gone and squatty boring 8 story annex to the Republic complex took it’s place – only to have Republic go under in a few short years
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tracks are still under the asphalt on Pacific.. i saw them when they were repaving a while back!
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Interesting. The railroad track removal along Pacific was a major undertaking. I’ve seen photos from the 1920s of the tracks actually being removed. I wonder if what you saw might have been later tracks? Streetcar tracks maybe?
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i knew you would say that and i tried to remember what intersection i saw them….. darn it… i want to say around where 75 meets pacific … i knew i should have taken a pic!!! sorry!!!
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Haha! No problem! I think that because this pulling-up-the-tracks thing was such a major undertaking — it had been argued about and delayed for YEARS (and I think there were even lawsuits involved) — that the old Texas & Pacific tracks probably would have been removed completely. I think it took two years to finish the project. I don’t doubt you saw tracks, but they might have been old streetcar tracks or tracks that weren’t associated with T&P (which ran down Pacific). The Houston and Texas Central (H&TC) and T&P crossed at the old Union Depot near Central and Pacific — sounds like you might have seen old H&TC tracks. (Central Expressway was named “Central” because it basically ran along the route of the H&TC tracks.)
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ok maybe your right… check this out this is on live oak.. these are the tracks i saw… but you can see them clearly on this google maps link… what track are these? https://www.google.com/maps/@32.7863542,-96.7920091,3a,75y,6.13h,65.64t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sOZbhCkGV81uGfAMKiH8t0w!2e0!7i13312!8i6656!6m1!1e1
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Ah. There were streetcar (and possibly Interurban) tracks at that spot. Here’s a cool map which shows the old routes of streetcars and Interurbans: https://www.google.com/maps/d/viewer?hl=en&mid=1n1dQ6O6qVYe0ofVR3-qeDkumX9g
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there they are.. right on live oak!! thanks Paula!
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I doubt there were streetcar tracks along Pacific Ave. where the T&P tracks were. They probably crossed Pacific Ave. but did not run parallel to the avenue.
There was also a Texas Midland motorcar that operated over T&P tracks from Terrell to Dallas for some years.
T&P had two freight depots–one near each end of the severed section downtown. I’ll have to look up the date when the work on pulling up tracks was officially started. It was a big deal!
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Thanks, Dennis. I think the track removal began in June, 1921. Yes, it was a HUGE deal! But it’s surprising that it seems to have taken more than two years to complete.
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[…] “Pacific Avenue: Watch for Trains! — ca. 1917.” Pacific looking east from Akard. I wish the quality of this image were better, but even washed-out, this Frank Rogers photo of a train whooshing along Pacific is cool. […]
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