Zang Boulevard Turnpike in Dallas

[bugo]

It was an earthen fill road with a single steel bridge span over the Trinity River.  Do any remnants remain?

[Brian556]

Never heard of this before. Can you post a link to the source of this information if its online?

[bugo]

http://memory.loc.gov/pnp/habshaer/tx/tx0700/tx0759/data/tx0759data.pdf

[MaxConcrete]

I never heard of this facility and I never came across any references to it in all my research for the DFW Freeways book.

Of course, this was probably well before the freeway era, but I did dig back into the 1930s in some cases.

Also, that document link has blank pages.

[dfwtbear]

Briefly overviewing the doc, its for the Houston Street Viaduct.

[M C Toyer]

New here and a bit late but I can offer this:

About 1899 a single span Pratt truss bridge was placed on the Trinity River at the foot of Houston Street and a causeway built across the bottoms to Oak Cliff.  The truss had previously been located at the foot of Main Street since 1890 for the West Dallas Railroad, but that project was never fully realized.

The roadway was originally named Grand Avenue as it connected to that street in Oak Cliff but after the 1903 annexation was renamed Zang Boulevard to avoid duplication of an existing street in Dallas.  R F Zang was a Dallas businessman and one of the developers of the new suburb of Oak Cliff which began about 1887.  There were already two other bridges and causeways spanning the Trinity bottoms but after the disastrous 1908 flood the Dallas and Oak Cliff Viaduct was built to provide an all weather route.  It was located directly south of and parallel to Zang Boulevard.  The old Zang bridge and causeway remained in use as a secondary route.

When the flood control levees were constructed ca 1929-30 the Trinity River was shifted to the west. The causeway was truncated and the truss bridge landlocked by the east levee.  It remained in place for another dozen years and served as a base for advertising billboards until destroyed by the flood of 1942.

This is an excerpt from the 1912 Library of Congress Panoramic Photo.  It was taken facing north from the trestle of the 1887 Oak Cliff Steam Railroad which by then carried the Interurbans and street trolleys.  Note the span of the viaduct over the river was flat to accommodate river traffic (another project never realized) while all the others were arched.  The low wooden bridge was a temporary work platform.  The Zang Boulevard truss bridge is in the background.




Remnants of two concrete pilings survive on the outside slope of the levee.  The levees were built under and against the viaduct. The old river channel serves as a storm water conduit which is pumped into the diversion channel - the pump station is just south of the viaduct.  At this location the original channel is between the levee and Riverfront Boulevard.  There is still a short stretch of the original Zang Boulevard on the east side of Riverfront adjacent to the parking lot of the BBQ joint.





The old trolley trestle remained in place until about 1970 until the present Jefferson Street Viaduct was built along its route.


The Library of Congress has another 1912 panoramic photo of the viaduct but it is a composite with a view of the Dallas business district taken from another vantage point superimposed making it appear the city had an extended waterfront.

M C

[MaxConcrete]

New here and a bit late but I can offer this:

Nice historical detective work with those photos. Thanks.