The Old Red Museum of Dallas Texas

The Old Red Museum

This article is about The Old Red Museum of Dallas which is located in downtown Dallas Texas. The museum is located in a beautifully restored building, built in 1892, that was the Dallas County Courthouse until 1966. Today, The Old Red Museum is an excellent addition to your Dallas Texas trip planner and a great place to learn how this city grew from one man's 1841 settlement to a major metropolitan area of the twenty-first century.

The Old Red Museum

The building is of red sandstone in a Richardsonian Romanesque style of architecture. The building was known locally as the Old Red Courthouse located at the southwest corner of Commerce and Houston Streets. The old courthouse is on the National Register of Historic Places.

The Old Red Museum is on the first floor of the Old Red Courthouse and exhibits the evolution of Dallas. Four permanent exhibits detail the history of Dallas Texas.

The Children’s Education Center within the museum offers a hands on and interactive experience for kids, and the museum also rotates a series of special exhibits that celebrate unique aspects of Dallas art and history.

Richardsonian Romanesque Architecture

Founded During the Days of the Republic of Texas

Dallas Texas was founded in 1841. John Neely Bryan from Arkansas built a log cabin in 1841 near a river and called the settlement Dallas. The river is what today is the Trinity floodplain and had existing trails made by the Native American Caddo tribe. The place along the trinity River that Bryan established his outpost was known as the White Rock Crossing. The crossing was considered easy for wagons before ferry service and bridges were erected.

Bryan's settlement would become a trading post. Like some other early settlement, one person might serve several functions. In the case of John Neely Bryan, he served as Dallas' first postmaster, store owner and ferry boat operator. In 1844 a plan was laid out detailing several city blocks that would one day become downtown Dallas Texas.This was at the time of the Republic of Texas which would then be annexed by the United States in 1845 at the time of the Mexican-American War. Dallas would go on to be incorporated in 1851.

The story of how Dallas was named Dallas has a few versions. One version has it named from a naming contest in 1842. A second version says that it may have been named after an 1842 settler named Joseph Dallas. Another is that it was named after a friend of John Neely Bryan. Yet another version has the settlement named after a naval Commodore and yet another after a U.S. Secretary of the Treasury. It has never been concluded exactly which is the official or real version however one of them obviously is.

Old Dallas County Texas Courthouse

Not a seaport like the Houston-Galveston area of Texas, Dallas grew from the oil and cotton industries as well as farming. The city grew even further because of the many rail lines that crossed it as well as the many Interstate Highways that eventually converge from every direction.

Modern Day Dallas

While Dallas grew because of cotton and oil, the city today is a top ten American city and is generally referred to as the Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex. Fort Worth was established eight years after Dallas in 1849 as a military fort overlooking the Trinity River and was named after major General William Jenkins Worth. Fort Worth would become famous for it's stockyards and later for it's oil industry. Fort Worth was located along the famous Chisholm Trail that led from southern Texas up to the rail stops in Kansas. The Texas and Pacific Railway built into Fort Worth in 1876 and made the area a famous cattle town.

The real growth of Dallas was a result of World War Two when many defense related companies called Dallas home. One of these was Collins Radio. As the decades rolled one, telecommunications and other technology companies also sprung up which has continued to this day. As a result, Dallas Texas has built a very diverse business base and is one of the most growing metropolitan areas in the U.S.

Below are links to additional Western Trips photo articles about Dallas area sites you'll enjoy.

The Perot Museum of Nature and Science

Interurban Electric Railway Museum

Dealey Plaza and old Schoolbook Depository Bldg

Visiting The Old Red Museum

The Old Red Museum is located in the heart of downtown Dallas Texas. It is available for both individual and group tours and is currently open 9A-5P daily.

Because The Old red Museum is located in the heart of Dallas, there's several other interesting sites to see nearby.  The museum is adjacent to the JFK Memorial and Dealey Plaza, a National Historic Landmark District. It is also across the street from a replica of Dallas founder John Neely Bryan’s cabin and just a block south of The Sixth Floor Museum and the historic West End of Dallas. All of these sites are in easy walking distance to the others.

(Article and photos copyright 2013 Western Trips)



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Historic Schoolhouses

Western Trips made a visit to a couple of very interesting historic schoolhouses on display in the western U.S. One of these old schoolhouses is on display in Santa Fe New Mexico and the other in Indio California, just a few miles east of Palm Springs. Both of these displays are among other historic artifacts and both sites make excellent additions to any vacation planner.

Old Raton New Mexico schoolhouse

School classrooms back in the early part of the twentieth century and those even earlier back in the 1800's were quite a bit different from what we're used to today. In fact, some of the schoolhouses in the 1800's on the western frontier were one room structures where often, because of the small area, a single desk and seat would be occupied by two students.One small schoolhouse would often times serve all grades, K through 8.

The Santa Fe New Mexico Schoolhouse

The schoolhouse shown in the photos was at one time located in Raton New Mexico in the northeastern part of the state near the Colorado border. It is a two room structure. The schoolhouse was disassembled and relocated to El rancho Las Golondrinas, a fascinating 200 acre outdoor living museum. Several scenes from Hollywood movies have been filmed at this location over the years. Food grown today at this historic ranch site is donated to the Food Bank of New Mexico, which provides food for pantries.This outdoor museum also features a gristmill, blacksmith shop, church and many other interesting structures that were part of the Spanish occupation of the area.

Raton schoolhouse classroom

This particular schoolhouse is a small structure with a room adjacent to the classroom where the teacher lived. This is also the first schoolhouse built in Raton New Mexico which was along a segment of the old Santa Fe Trail as well as a stop for the old Atchison Topeka and Santa Fe Railroad.

The old Raton New Mexico schoolhouse was one of those where students did share a desk and a seat. It's quite a historic structure which fortunately was saved from destruction by having it moved to El Rancho Las Golondrinas.

Indio California One Room Schoolhouse

The old schoolhouse on display in Indio California was the second schoolhouse built the area. The schoolhouse is on the grounds of the Coachella Valley History Museum. This museum was established in 1965 by local residents and currently displays many artifacts from the period when Indio and the Coachella Valley was growing with the Southern Pacific Railroad building through the area. The Coachella Valley has a history of Date agriculture and the world's only Date Museum is located right next door to the schoolhouse. The schoolhouse was originally constructed on the site of what is now the Greyhound Bus depot. It was moved to the current site in 1999 and was beautifully restored.

Old Indio CA schoolhouse

The structure also served as a hospital during the 1918 flu epidemic which spread throughout the United States and the world. It's estimated that about 50 million people died from this disease worldwide. More than 600,000 of those deaths were in the U.S. The 50 million number was thought to be more than double the amount of lives lost during World War One which had just ended.

During the 1930's the schoolhouse was moved to serve as a classroom for the Roosevelt School.
The restoration you see today takes the schoolhouse back to the year of 1909 and what it looked like then.

The Indio one room schoolhouse served grades K-8. The building today is dedicated as a reminder to the future generations of the vital role education played in the formation of the present communities in the Coachella Valley.

1909 school classroom

Links below are to two additional Western Trips photo articles you'll enjoy. Joshua Tree National Park is located just to the east/northeast of Indio California and is one of the unique of our National Parks.

Another quite unique site is Quartzite Arizona, east of Indio near the Colorado River and along Interstate 10. Here was once a busy mining area and also the final resting place of a man they referred to as Hi Jolly. Hi Jolly, who later went by the name of Philip Tedro, was an Ottoman citizen who came to America to help the U.S. Army with it's camel expeditions through the southwest during the late 1850's. Being located along Interstate 10, Quartzite is a fun historical stop while on an Arizona/California road trip.

A Hiking Trip to Joshua Tree National Park

Historic Quartzite Arizona

El Rancho Las Golondrinas is located about fifteen miles southwest of the Santa Fe plaza at 334 Los Pinos Road.

The Coachella Valley History Museum where the 1909 schoolhouse is located is at 82616 Miles Avenue, Indio California.



(Article and photos copyright 2013 Western Trips)