I am finally getting around to making a Highway History Map showing all of the old highway alignments in Downtown Dallas.
The number of times US 75 changed alignments is insane. Looks like it's gonna be around 5. I'll post the results when the project is finished.
I'm finding some conflicting information and some things that I am unsure of.
Issue#1. In the 50's, for a while US 75 made a connection from Lamar St over to S.Central/Pearl Expy/Good Latimer Expy.
Some maps show this connection utilizing only Grand Av, while others show it utilizing Grand Av and Forest Av as a one-way pair.
Which was it? Or did it use Grand only at first, but changed to use also Forest?
I cannot tell what street it used to connect between Grand and Forest at the NE end of the one way couplet.
Issue #2. The 1953 official map shows Good-Latimer Expy and the Central Expy/Pearl Expy one way pair in red. Did the Central/Pearl pair somehow remain on-system even though 75 had moved to Good Latimer?
If anybody can help please reply. Thanks.
the two top maps are 1954
(https://www.aaroads.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fi1209.photobucket.com%2Falbums%2Fcc395%2FBrian5561%2FDTD1954MAPCOMP.png&hash=9efc796e5d52fc954008d375de0f5cb9f6e80381) (https://www.aaroads.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fi1209.photobucket.com%2Falbums%2Fcc395%2FBrian5561%2FDallas1953.png&hash=e706b0361f8a9278022e155710a085cdaba79a2b)
I've never heard of anyone talking about Forest Ave. (pre-MLK change) ever being a part of a one-way pair before, even though I've seen all but the wider-scan map before. I'm not sure if the Grand-Forest arrangement was used exclusively or just Grand or some time was spent using each arrangement. As far as the connecting street on the NE side, it could have been Ervay. I thought about Harwood at first, but its downtown one-way direction has been south, while Ervay's has been north.
As for Good-Latimer, Central, and Pearl, I think only 1 of those was used at a time, even though all 3 are given equal treatment in the mapping. They've all been somewhat major arterials in downtown at least since the 1950s, whether one of them was signed as US 75, or the other.
It would help tremendously if one of the mappers had a close-enough scale of the downtown area, but wide enough that it went out a little farther than downtown. Unfortunately, Mapsco wasn't around until 1952, which misses much of the early US highway incarnations; the only oil-co that was really close (that I've seen so far) was one of the Esso/Enco/Humble ones, but it wasn't mapped east of Central, nor far enough south to include the Grand-Forest Ave. area.
Central/Good-Latimer may have been an equal split for distributing traffic, like the four one-way streets in Houston between the Gulf and North Freeways.
Here is a shot of Dallas from 1936, showing US 75 running along Ross and Greenville Avenues, long before there was any freeways.
(https://www.aaroads.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fi631.photobucket.com%2Falbums%2Fuu40%2FChip1701%2FAARoads%2FDallas-1936.jpg&hash=d5eaa50cb4f67f7b385ad6195d488861435d99b3)
QuoteHere is a shot of Dallas from 1936, showing US 75 running along Ross and Greenville Avenues, long before there was any freeways.
I am familiar with that map, and I used it as a reference when creating my map.
http://www.usends.com/Focus/Dallas/index.html
This shows US 67 and 75 duplexed along Commerce. So that must have been yet another alignment.
Slightly off topic, but when was Commerce switched to a 1 way street?