The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 47, July 1943 - April, 1944 Page: 222
456 p. : ill., maps ; 24 cm.View a full description of this periodical.
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Southwestern Historical Quarterly
The old road extended almost three miles due west from the
county line, then southwest across Duck Creek, then swung
more toward the west, passing not far to the north of the pres-
ent village of New Hope and a few hundred yards north of
Buckner's Orphans Home, then turned westward to White Rock
Creek between the Texas & Pacific Railway and Highway 80.
Here map measurements lead almost to the present city limits
of Dallas.
The study should next follow the old road from White Rock
Creek directly into the city of Dallas itself. The old field notes
reveal that by the National Road it was three and one-tenth
miles between White Rock and Mill Creek,47 that the area im-
mediately east of the crossing on Mill Creek was prairie, and
that at the road crossing the latter stream flowed southeast.
Correlating the Peters Colony Map of 1852 with present maps
of Dallas, one discovers that there was a strip of timber east
of Mill Creek in the area south of the Texas & Pacific tracks.
These facts recorded in Stell's field notes and the topography
of Dallas limit the band in which the National Road could have
crossed Dallas to a strip two or three hundred yards wide. The
route of that old trail stayed north of the Texas & Pacific rail-
road all of the way west to the Trinity River. The route was as
much as a half-mile north of the Texas State Fair Grounds, yet
south of the Ursuline Academy; it crossed Mill Creek just below
Exall Park at the place that Mill Creek flows southeast, and it
passed about half a mile north of the main business district of
Dallas.48 The last span of the old road turned southwest for
47White Rock Creek is called by name in Major Stell's field notes. Mill
Creek is not. But there is no other stream that can at all qualify.
48Various types of evidence have been employed in determining the
route of the National Road through Dallas. Exhaustive measurements
on the Texas Highway Department's map of Dallas were made until the
place was found at which Major Stell's field notes almost exactly fitted
the space between White Rock and Mill Creek. The writer then went to
Dallas, followed the course of Mill Creek on foot as far as obstructions
would permit, and had an interview with Henry L. Stokey, who has lived
in the immediate area for the past sixty-three years. Stokey reports that
the prairie came to the banks of Mill Creek on its east side only between
Exall Park and Gaston Avenue and that the present southeasterly course
of the stream between these points follows the original stream bed. It
should be noted that Stokey's information roughly confirms the Peters
Colony map of 1852 as to the distribution of timber and prairie and that
the combined evidence leaves no other place for one to locate the crossing
of the National Road on Mill Creek except between Gaston Avenue and
Exall Park, for Major Stell, according to his notes, entered prairie im-
mediately east of Mill Creek at the place where that stream flowed south-
east. To make doubly sure as to the accuracy of this conclusion, measure-222
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Texas State Historical Association. The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 47, July 1943 - April, 1944, periodical, 1944; Austin, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth146054/m1/253/: accessed April 18, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Texas State Historical Association.