The WPA Dallas Guide and History Page: 139

                                
latter arrangement, 35 miles was cut off the previous route from Dallas to Tex-
arkana and Memphis.
Continued efforts of Dallas citizens, supported by cash donations, within a few
years brought three more railroads into the city. In 1903, having built into Dallas
from Fort Worth, the Chicago, Rock Island & Gulf Railway's first train arrived,
coming direct from Chicago. A year later, this road returned all public subscrip-
tions, amounting to $62,000, saying the company preferred to pay its own way.
With the shortest route between Dallas and Houston as an inducement for pa-
tronage, the Trinity & Brazos Valley Railway opened service into Dallas in 1907.
This road later secured trackage rights over the Southern Pacific as far as Gal-
veston. In 1930, it became a part of the Burlington-Rock Island Railway and as
such forms a portion of two other trunk lines.
Arrival on June 1, 1925, of the Fort Worth & Denver City Railway's first train in
Dallas was made the occasion of a public celebration. Chartered in 1872, the rail-
road was constructed over a period of years from Fort Worth to Denver. Its exten-
sion to Dallas gave the city a direct rail route to the Colorado Rockies.
Freight service into and out of Dallas also is afforded by the Louisiana, Arkansas
& Texas Railroad under trackage agreements.
Seven years after enactment of a law by the legislature requiring the several rail-
roads entering Dallas to build a joint passenger terminal, Dallas' Union Station was
opened in 1916. The new passenger terminal building and incidental facilities cost
$5,500,000. Construction was begun in January, 1914, with Jarvis Hunt of Chicago
as architect and C. H. Dana as chief engineer. Building of the Union Station cli-
maxed several years of negotiations with the railroads by Dallas businessmen.
Previously five separate stations were used by the various lines. The Missouri,
Kansas & Texas station was at Market Street and Pacific Avenue. That of the Hous-
ton & Texas Central and the Texas & New Orleans (Southern Pacific) was at Pacific
and Central Avenues. The Gulf, Colorado & Santa Fe, the Chicago, Rock Island &
Gulf, and the St. Louis & San Francisco utilized jointly a station on Commerce
Street, on the site of the present Santa Fe Building. The Texas & Pacific station was
on Pacific Avenue, between Lamar and Griffin Streets, while the present
Greyhound Bus Terminal at Commerce and Lamar Streets had been used as a depot
by the St. Louis-Southwestern and the Trinity & Brazos Valley. After the Union
Station had been completed, the Texas & Pacific removed its tracks from Pacific
Avenue.
Dallas today (1940) is served by eight trunk-line railroads, operating thirty-
three passenger trains and numerous freight trains into and out of the city each
24 hours.
Streetcars were run in Dallas for the first time in the spring of 1873, following
completion of tracks on Main Street from the courthouse to the Houston & Texas
Central railway station, one and one-third miles eastward, at what is now Central
Avenue. Service was inaugurated on February 7, after the facilities had been tried
out by city and county officials during a celebration on the preceding night. Local
businessmen had subscribed $10,000 to the capital of the Dallas City Railroad
Company, the builders, of which G. M. Swink was president.
The cars, two in number, were but ten feet long, each drawn by two mules. Until
the second railroad started operation only one car was used. The vehicles were
named-one for Belle Swink, a daughter of the first president of the company, and
the other for John Neely Bryan. One chivalrous driver carried a plank on the front
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