The Cloverleaf

patreon_cloverleaf_south_txdot_slotboom_ca-mid-1950s_colorBehold... (via TxDOT)

by Paula Bosse

I have such a weird fondness for the old Central Expressway/Northwest Highway cloverleaf interchange, at NorthPark. In fact, I kind of forget it’s not there anymore. I have fairly scary memories of my mother driving like a bat out of hell on it. I’m pretty sure the car was tipped at an angle on two tires as we rounded those curves. And I remember being behind the wheel myself when I was a new driver, white-knuckling it until I hit the straight-away. Strange that I have such fond memories of it, because a lot of those memories were kind of terrifying! I guess it has to be the design. It was cool. COOL! The photo above is just great. The view is to the south from Northwest Highway, across open Caruth farmland. Mid-’50s. Pre-NorthPark. Pre-people. Pre-traffic.

Below, after NorthPark’s arrival (photo from Oct. 1967):

patreon_cloverleaf_northpark_oct-1967_UTA_slotboom_color

Here’s an interesting photo I stumbled across in an issue of SMU’s Daily Campus newspaper from 1951 — a personal-size cloverleaf:

patreon_cloverleaf_SMU-daily-campus_050551SMU Daily Campus, May 5, 1951

I really miss the Northwest Highway cloverleaf. I think about it almost every time I drive past NorthPark on Central. Shoulda kept it, Dallas.

***

Sources & Notes

The top two photos are from the book Dallas-Fort Worth Freeways by Oscar Slotboom (top photo from TxDOT, second photo from UTA Libraries, Special Collections).

This post appeared in a slightly different form on the Flashback Dallas Patreon page.

patreon_cloverleaf_south_txdot_slotboom_ca-mid-1950s_color

*

Copyright © 2024 Paula Bosse. All Rights Reserved.