It was a busy ethnic hub then, in the mid-1900s, just before the unstoppable forces of progress got in the way and strangled it, stifling the once thriving settlement’s vital signs with added improvisos and an eventual coup de grace. The place, just north of downtown Dallas, near a city dump and ubiquitous railroad yards, was the home for thousands of Mexican immigrants and others. They called it Little Mexico.
Festive civic celebration at Little Mexico in Dallas, circa mid-1900s. Colorized image of the original black and white photo. Unknown author of original image.
The original inhabitants, who settled there during the second decade of the past century, were mainly families that had fled from the country to the south, a then ravished land that had been overcome by atrocities, a never-ending civil war, and other ills. After finding solace and refuge in north Texas and at that tract of segregated, undeveloped, and unwanted by others piece of land, the newcomers soon turned it into their home away from home.
Eventually, the settlers also turned the hub into a livable place. But it took a while for that to happen. For years, what was later called Little Mexico, was an out of the way shantytown, a forgotten enclave of Dallas, and a place devoid of basic infrastructure, including schools and paved streets. Most homes were basically shacks, built with scrap wood and other discarded materials.
But it was home for the Mexican immigrants and for others. For thousands of families and for the kids that grew up there.
The settlement eventually had schools, other public facilities, and better built homes, as well as gathering places, such as restaurants and bars, and a must-have of yore, a tortilla factory. It also had a small park, a venue where people gathered to take in the sun and to partake in the latest “chisme,” but also to celebrate festive occasions.
That public gathering place, incidentally, was renamed Pike Park in 1927, to honor Edgar L. Pike, a former Dallas parks and recreation board member. The name change meant little, though. Most people still called it “The Mexican park.” The moniker fit well.
Pike Park, by the way, is still around. But not Little Mexico. The once segregated shantytown, where Mexican families lived and practiced their ways, was eventually done away with. Urban progress done it, as I mentioned before. First, in 1966, with the construction of the Dallas North Tollway, a project that cut right through the middle and the heart of the neighborhood.
A few years later, the construction of the Woodall Rogers freeway added salt to the injury, lopping off again parts of that cherished home away from home of Mexican immigrants and their descendants. Little Mexico was done.
We can blame progress, again, for the unforeseen turn of events and for the unwelcome ending of a once thriving, flourishing, and proud neighborhood, with roots to the culture to the south. But we can also blame the usual culprits. Greed is the main one. Other factors? The growth of Uptown, gentrification, rising costs for those that lived there, and eminent domain. As it is often said, “You can’t fight city hall.” What it wants, it gets.
So the Mexicans and their families left. They were Mexican Americans now. They moved to other areas of the Dallas, Fort Worth region, to the now called Metroplex. It was an unwelcome transition for the people that had made a trek to America to get away from the ill ways of the Mexican revolution, and for their descendants. But just like most survivors, they adjusted and adapted to the unexpected change. Most continued to thrive at other places, but they no longer had a home they could call their own.
It was non-fairy tale ending for them all, for sure. For the Martinezes and the Lunas and the Villasanas, and for everyone else and their descendants that had for years given life to a once undeveloped and unforgiving piece of land near a city dump and the clickety-clacking railways and their yards. An end, too, to a place they called Little Mexico. A community that reminded them of their other home, of the country whose culture and ways still ran through their veins and still warmed their hearts.
But more so, it was an end to a popular destination where true to life Mexican cuisine could be found then. Not the tweaked stuff, the real deal.
* * * * *