Site of First Ferry and Bridge

The ground where the ferry landed became a park in the 1930s. The National Historic Landmark nomination says Dealey Plaza was formed in 1934 to 1940 from several blocks of Bryan's original land grant, after railroad tracks were moved in 1934 and 1935. It was named for civic leader George Bannerman Dealey in 1935 and dedicated in 1936, with garden structures added in 1938 to 1940. City engineers designed it with help from the Texas and Pacific's chief engineer. The Triple Underpass, first called the Elm-Main-Commerce Subway, carries the roadway about twenty-four feet below Houston Street.

What the plaque says

Site of First Ferry and Bridge (About 300 feet West) First ferry on the Trinity River at Dallas was started here, 1842, by John Neely Bryan (1810 - 1877), the founder of Dallas. Alexander Cockrell (1820 - 1858), early builder and developer, replaced ferry with wooden toll bridge, 1854. This crossing played an important part in the development of the city. (1968)

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 — 0.8 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

• Alexander Cockrell_Sarah Horton Cockrell — steps away
• John Neely Bryan, 1810-1877 and Margaret Beeman Bryan, 1825-1919 — steps away
• Dallas County — steps away
• A. H. Belo Corporation — steps away