Dallas in 1872
When William H. Patchen, Herman Brosius’ agent, arrived in Dallas in December 1872, he had with him a copy of the newly printed view of Jefferson by Brosius as well as a sketch of Dallas that Brosius had just finished. He had, too, a proposal that if the local citizens would subscribe for a sufficient number of copies, he would produce a colored lithograph of Dallas similar to the one of Jefferson.[1]
Brosius depicted Dallas from the southwest just before its first commercial boom. John Neely Bryan had founded the city as a trading post on the Trinity River, orienting the streets to a bend in the river at the site of a limestone ledge at what was supposedly the head of navigation. The Trinity never proved navigable—a fact that Brosius emphasizes by showing two people in a small rowboat rather than steamboats, as in the Jefferson view—but Bryan’s site was the best crossing for miles and was on the route of a planned Republic of Texas road from Austin to the Red River.[2] The village grew slowly as settlers occupied the area and agricultural production increased. Beginning in the 1850s, it was an important stop for cattle drovers on the Shawnee Trail, but by 1870 cattle traffic had declined because of the “excessive taxes” that the tribes in Indian Territory charged to pass through their land and shifted west, to the Chisholm Trail that ran through Fort Worth.[3] By 1872, when Brosius depicted the city, the courthouse was unfinished in the block surrounded by Main, Commerce, Jefferson, and Houston streets. The city had a steam flour mill (18 on map), two foundries, three planning mills, fifteen to twenty lumberyards, two soap factories, and one brewery (21). The Town Branch of Mill Creek is shown in the foreground. Lawyer John M. McCoy, a recent arrival from Indiana, found it easy to express exuberance about the developing city to his parents. Writing on July 7, 1872, in anticipation of the arrival of the Houston and Texas Central Railway the following week, he bragged: “Talk about your Baltimores, New York and Philadelphia and leave Dallas out of the ring if you dare. Baltimore is no more of a ‘Hub,’ New York is no more of a ‘Street’ and [a] Philadelphia lawyer isn’t any sharper in his own estimation than Dallas. Dallas, the Hub Dallas, the crescent of the southwest, Dallas the bright spot of the Lone Star, Dallas the coming City of Texas, the center of the grand Eldorado of the South.” When Brosius’ bird’s-eye view was published, McCoy sent a copy to his fianc?e.[4]
Apparently, none of the freedmen’s communities, which were developing around Dallas as former slaves moved to town, is shown; one, for example, was located just east of the Houston and Texas Central Railway, beyond the right margin of the print.[5] But a number of African-American residences in the city are shown, such as those on the south side of Pacific between Houston and Broadway. According to census data, African-American laundresses and domestic servants lived in those dwellings during the 1870s.[6]
The H&TC Railway is correctly shown arriving from the south (on the right-hand side of the print), but the Texas & Pacific (running east and west) would not arrive until the following year. Construction on the Dallas and Wichita Railroad (shown running northwest in the upper left-hand corner of the print) was delayed until 1878 by the Panic of 1873. Nor was the mule-drawn trolley that Brosius shows running up Main Street to the H&TC passenger station yet in operation.[7] H&TC and T&P railroads would turn Dallas into the commercial center of North Texas, but in 1872 the city, with a population of about 3,000 persons, was still trying to overcome what one historian called a “rough reputation.”[8] The arrival of the railroads brought about a swift decline in Jefferson but greatly increased the commercial prospects of Dallas.