The Houston Street Viaduct under construction, 103 years ago

The Houston Street Viaduct under construction, 103 years ago

The Oak Cliff Streetcar is expected to start running across the Houston Street Viaduct early next year. The bridge originally opened to traffic in 1912, and may it last another 100 years and more. The above photo, submitted by neighbor Tim Alonzo, was taken when the bridge was under construction in 1911.

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View of Dallas from what is now Commerce, January 1942. Photo by Arthur Rothstein via the Library of Congress

This photo was taken as part of a series that the U.S. Farm Security Administration/Office of War Information commissioned in 1942 to document Highway 80 between Fort Worth and Dallas. Several more of the series are available online from the Library of Congress.

The photo below, of the Houston Street Viaduct and also from the Library of Congress, is perhaps the best one we’ve dug up this week, although we can’t quite do the panorama justice here. Check it out on the Library of Congress website, where you can zoom in for sweet details of 1912 Dallas.

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