John Neely Bryan, 1810-1877 and Margaret Beeman Bryan, 1825-1919

Bryan's later life was harder than the founder's title suggests. In 1855 he shot a man who had insulted his wife and fled to the Creek Nation, now the Muscogee (Creek) Nation. Though he soon learned the man had recovered, he stayed away from his family for about six years, looking for gold in Colorado and California. He served in the Eighteenth Texas Cavalry until discharged in late 1862. The Handbook of Texas says his mind was clearly impaired by 1874. He entered the State Lunatic Asylum, later Austin State Hospital, in 1877 and died there that September.

What the plaque says

John Neely Bryan, 1810-1877 and Margaret Beeman Bryan, 1825-1919 In 1839 Tennessee lawyer John Neely Bryan chose this high bluff and shallow ford on the Trinity River as site for a trading post. Finding Indians scarce when he returned in 1841, he platted a town, installed a ferry, and called the place Dallas. In the 1840s, the Republic of Texas opened its Central National Road from here to the U.S. border, and drew settlers to this area with liberal land grants. Margaret Beeman was a daughter of John Beeman, a prosperous man from Illinois, of North Carolina heritage. At 15, she met Bryan at the Cross Roads Camp Ground, Bowie County. Her father staked his claim about eight miles from Bryan's town. She and Bryan married in 1843, and became parents of six children. Margaret, her father, and other relatives strongly supported Bryan's work as "Father of Dallas." Bryan went to the California gold rush in 1849, but gained no fortune. After his return, he donated 98 city lots for a courthouse and county seat, then sold his ferry and remaining interest in the townsite. In poor health for many years, he died in Austin at 67. Margaret Beeman Bryan lived to age 94, and saw Dallas attain a population of over 150,000. (1978)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• The Sixth Floor Museum at Dealey Plaza — steps away
  A plow-company warehouse of 1903, identified by the Warren Commission as the building Oswald fired from, now a museum on its sixth and seventh floors above Dealey Plaza.
• Dallas Museum of Art — 0.7 mi
  A city art museum that began as the Dallas Art Association in 1903, grew up in Fair Park, and has stood in the Arts District since 1984 under a forty-foot barrel vault.
• Dallas Heritage Village at Old City Park — 1.3 mi
  Dallas's first city park, laid out around Browder's Spring in 1876, now a museum of historic buildings moved here from across North Texas, among them Millermore, a cotton planter's mansion.
• African American Museum, Dallas — 2.6 mi
  Founded in 1974 at Bishop College, a free Fair Park museum holding the Sepia photograph archive, African art and A. Maceo Smith's papers, and the story of the Hall of Negro Life.

More markers nearby

• Site of First Ferry and Bridge — steps away
• Alexander Cockrell_Sarah Horton Cockrell — steps away
• Dallas County — steps away
• A. H. Belo Corporation — 0.3 mi