This is the oldest known photo of Main Street in Dallas, taken in 1872. Records show that the city had a population of just over 3,000, but would rapidly grow to over 10,000 by 1880.

A great resource for getting a feel for what Dallas was like during this exact time period is the book "When Dallas Became a City: Letters of John Milton McCoy" Edited by Elizabeth York Enstam. (It can be a bit tough to find though).

It's a collection of letters from a man who moved to Dallas in 1870 to join his uncle there and work as an attorney. The letters are to his family still living in Indiana and he is very detailed about his experiences in Dallas just at the time that Dallas is getting the railroads and the telegraph.

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bright1111@reddit

And now we have 3 stock exchanges. The DNA of the city.

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711SushiChef@reddit

I see homeboy in the middle of the street with his quarterhorse, the Nissan Altima of the 1870s.

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donwileydon@reddit

probably has paper tags too

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g8trjasonb@reddit

Student driver

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middlebird@reddit

Hey there, mister!

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2ManyCooksInTheKitch@reddit

Railroads significantly changed Dallas from small town to city. This also hampered growth of neighboring towns that up until that point were growing at the same pace of Dallas. It was some political maneuvering that Dallas became a big junction point of the T&P Rail and H&TC Rail (legislation was passed in Austin that the junction occur at Browder Springs aka Dallas).

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