15 Famous Things Dallas is Known For

From Mark Cuban’s Dallas Mavericks to the notoriety of Bonnie & Clyde, Dallas is a city with a rich history and a lot of colorful moments.

Dallas is one of Texas’s crown jewels. It’s the fourth largest metropolitan area in the USA and a culturally diverse city.

Below are 15 things that make the city s famous not only in the country but in the world.

What is Dallas Known For?

1. The Dallas Cowboys

Whenever one says Dallas, the first thing that comes to mind is the NFL Team, Dallas Cowboys. This team is popular because of its dynastic success in the sport.

 In addition to that, the group also had a lot of work put in marketing and branding.

Today, Dallas Cowboys is Americana—it is a name synonymous to what America is. The group is a valuable asset in the NFL. The players are like movie stars, and the team as a whole is the darling of the media.

2. Barney and Friends

One of the most iconic and popular TV shows for kids was from Dallas. The Barney franchise was taped in a suburb in Dallas, and its creator was also from Dallas.

Sheryl Leach was a teacher, and she got inspired to make the Barney show when she noticed that her son has outgrown the Wee Sing TogetherTV show.

She could not find videos that appealed to her son, and she created a team that brough together a show which they first named Barney and the Backyard Gang.

3. 7-11 Convenience Store Franchise

It is not likely for anyone in the world not to have at least heard of 7-Eleven. The company had its humble beginnings in South Ice Company in Dallas. The founder was an ice dock employee.

At that time, the founder thought of offering eggs, bread, and also milk on top of selling ice to help people preserve food. He made this offer on Sundays when most stores were closed.

The first name of 7-Eleven was Tote’m because the customers “toted” or carried their purchases. It was in 1946 when the stores were renamed 7-Eleven to signify the store hours, which was from 7 in the morning until 11 in the evening.

4. Bonnie and Clyde

Bonnie and Clyde were notorious criminals, a couple, that terrorized the Central US during the Great Depression.

They robbed small stores and banks, and they eventually died in a police shootout in 1934. They died in Louisiana. 

The coupled covered a lot of territory, not just Texas. Dallas was their hometown, and they kept coming back to visit relatives.

5. Oil Production

Dallas is famous because of its oil production industry. The Texas oil boom, or the Gusher Age, was a period of economic growth in the state.

It began in Beaumont, Texas, when people found a large petroleum reserve in the area.

In the 1930s, a Dallas-based company, the General America Finance System, began financing drilling operations throughout the state. They asked for the borrowers for oil reserves as collateral.

6. George W. Bush Presidential Center

Texas is a red state, and Republicans control every statewide office. As such, it is just apt to build a museum and a library for Dubya.

The Presidential Center is fairly new, as it was only established in 2013. The center has the former president’s library, and it also houses the George W. Bush Policy Institute.

It is inside the Southern Methodist University. The place will also be the future and final resting place of 43 and his wife Laura Bush.

7. Dallas Museum of Art

Dallas is famous for the DMA, or Dallas Museum of Art. This museum houses more than 23,000 works of art from past and present cultures. Overall, the collection spans 5,000 years of human art works.

Established in 1903, the museum is one of the biggest in the country. It covers 515,520 square feet. Apart from displaying art works, the people that manage it are also advocates of commitment to research.

The museum has a dress code, so people are expected to wear shoes and shirt when going in. People are also not supposed to touch the artwork, even the sculptures that are outdoors.

8. The Cavanaugh Flight Museum

Another thing that makes Dallas famous is the Cavanaugh Flight Museum.

It is one of the few places where a person can see classic planes such as the B-25. It also has notable WWI aircrafts like:

• Pfalz D.III
• Halberstadt CL.II
• Sopwith Camel
• Fokker D.VII
• Fokker Dr.1

The aviation-focus museum is not for profit. The museum is actually in Addison, not in Dallas. However, people associate Dallas with it because Addison is just next to Dallas.

9. The First Ku Klux Klan

The Ku Klux Klan was not founded in Dallas. It started in Tennessee. However, Dallas is famous for it because the organization opened its branch in the city in 1868. 

The most violent Klan was in Dallas. In 1921, the group in Dallas kidnapped Alex Johnson, a black man who people accused of having a sexual relationship with a white woman. The poor Alex received a beating and the abductors burned “KKK” into his forehead.

The prosecutor did not file charges against, the Klan, saying that the treatment for Alex was just right. In 1922, the Dallas KKK chapter was known to have performed 68 whippings on different people, some of which were white people.

10. UFO Sighting by a Farmer – John Martin

In 1878, a farmer, John Martin, told the story of the first UFO sighting. The sighting happened in Denison, Texas, but the story is closely associate with Dallas because of the involvement of the Dallas Herald.

It was the newspaper that brought it to public attention with the headline: A Strange Phenomenon.

In the story, John was hunting six miles north of Denison. He spotted a dark object in the sky. He said that at first, the object was the size of an orange, and then it got bigger as it got closer. Eventually, the object got close enough above his head, and it looked like a saucer.

11. Murder of Santos Rodriguez

Dallas is famous because it is the place that sparked a protest march against abuse on Latinos.

In 1973, a Dallas police officer, Darrell Cain, murdered Santos Rodriguez, a 12-year-oldMexican American boy. Santos was a suspect of a reported burglary.

The police officer shot Santos in the head by playing Russian roulette in a desperate attempt to get a confession from Santos and his brother. The police officer was found guilty of murder and was sentenced to five years in prison.

12. Assassination of John F. Kennedy

President John f. Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas in 1963. The assassination took place at 12:30 in the afternoon while on a motorcade in the downtown area of the city.

He was shot once in the back and also once in the head.

Kennedy was taken to a hospital but was pronounced dead in 30 minutes. The assassin was Lee Harvey Oswald, a man who worked at the Texas School Book Depository.

13. Six Flags Over Texas

Six Flags Over Texas is located in West Dallas. It is one of the most popular amusement parks in the country. 

The park opened in 1961 and it spans around 86 hectares. One controversy it faced was its Confederacy theme that showcased the reenactment of the Civil War.

However, the park displayed the Confederate Battle Flag, which drew the ire of many people.

The amusement park has the tallest roller coaster in the state at 245 feet. It holds the record for the fastest roller coaster in Texas at 85 miles per hour. The park also holds the record for the second tallest swing ride in the world.

14. The First Frozen Margarita

The frozen margarita that people drink today originated from Dallas. As legend has it, A man named Mariano Martinez opened a restaurant in Dallas in 1971.

His margarita recipe was excellent, but the consistency was bad. Some were good, and some were bad, and the customers complained.

One day, he went to a 7-Eleven store and saw the Slurpee. It was here that he got the idea of making a margarita with such a machine. He realized that he could make margaritas in batches, keep them frozen and still tasty, instead of making one at a time.

15. World War II Support

Finally, Dallas is famous for its participation in the war effort during the Second World War. Dallas was the manufacturing center of the war effort.

The Ford Motor Plant in Dallas was converted into a war manufacturing site in 1942. The company produced nothing but jeeps and military trucks. Overall, Ford produced 94,000 jeeps and about 6,000 trucks for the military.

The following year, the city started a rationing system. Fort Worth, a city close to Dallas, was also pivotal during the war as it was the city that manufactured planes.

Summary

Dallas is a witness to one of the bloodiest wars in America and a slew of atrocities committed by the Klu Klux Klan. However, the city redeems itself for also producing some of the most iconic things about what makes America tick.