In the late 1800’s elegant mansions of Dallas’ prominent businesspeople lined Maple, McKinney, Routh and Fairmount, including Dallas Morning News publisher George Bannerman Dealey and printing magnate William Scarff. They rode to work on the electric streetcar, a feature echoed now by the McKinney Avenue Trolley. Many of the crosswalks, trolley stops and sidewalk accents along McKinney still use the original red bricks with which the street was paved in 1892. Newer bricks follow that traditional style throughout the neighborhood with a tie-up ring for horses still visible in the sidewalk at the corner of McKinney and Boll, in front of S & D Oyster Company.
Nearby during this time, Africans and African-Americans settled in the post-Emancipation Freedman’s Town. Scant reminders of this once-thriving middle-class history remain on site, but are highlighted at a permanent exhibit at the Museum of African-American History and Culture in Fair Park. They will also be featured on a series of historic markers and displays in Griggs Park (originally Hall Street Negro Park, but renamed in 1929 for former slave Rev. Henry Griggs).
Now known as the State Thomas Historic District, the surrounding few blocks contain the most intact collection of historic residential structures of the late 1880's Victorian period remaining in Dallas. It is the last remnant of a once large, fashionable upper-middle-class community. Before 1880, parts of two families' farms on the SW corner of the McKinney Road made up present day State-Thomas. Guillot Street, where prominent Uptown businesses like Angela's Bistro 51 and Fit Zone are now located, was named for French immigrant Maxime Guillot. He moved to Dallas in 1872 and began two successful businesses and firsts for Dallas. His carriage making plant is believed to be the first manufacturing plant in Dallas and his bakery was first commercial bakery in Dallas. He retired with a comfortable fortune in 1869. It was said that he lost most of it in an attempt to locate Jean Lafitte's buried treasure. The Guillot’s family plot is in Calvary Cemetery.
The Trolley
Experience the thrill of hopping a vintage electric streetcar while shopping, dining, or entertaining in Uptown. McKinney Avenue Trolley features restored antique rail cars connecting Uptown visitors to the rest of the city through DART’s Cityplace subway station.
Cemetery Tour
The Uptown Trails Cemetery Tour is designed to educate us of its past by way of an informative self-guided walking tour through our most visible and enduring link to history.
Greenwood Cemetery hosts eight former Dallas mayors. Out of those eight, two were shot dead. In 1877 Ben Long, in an attempt to help out a saloon owner, was shot by a drunk who didn't want to pay for his beer. And J. M. Thurmond was killed in 1882 in court by a fellow lawyer, with whom he had a long-standing feud. We'll let you decide the moral of those stories. Other ghostly Uptown mayors include William L. Cabell, John Henry Brown, John Henry Traylor, Ben Cabell, Frank W. Wozencraft and Sawnie Robertson Aldredge.
Greenwood Cemetery also has a connection to other infamous individuals. In 1873, Dr. John Seegar took on an associate to help with his thriving practice. The young dentist arrived in Dallas from St. Louis hopeful that the dry air would help his tuberculosis. Unable to control his coughing, love of drinking and gambling, the young dentist was asked to move on and he did…all the way to Tombstone, Arizona taking on the renowned name and persona that we know as Doc Holliday.