Home Specific Projects Dallas, TX Parks & Boulevard System
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Parks & Boulevard System

George Dealey, along with other Dallas leaders, was instrumental in recruiting George Kessler, a nationally renowned landscape architect and city planner, to develop a long-range plan for the city after a disastrous flood of 1908. The plan envisioned straightening crooked and narrow downtown streets, providing floodway improvements along the Trinity River and creating a network of parkways and boulevards across Dallas.

Kessler (think Oak Cliff's Kessler Park) sought to re-channel the Trinity River one mile south of Downtown and create a levy system to control flooding. He also sought to beautify the area with "wildflowers and horse trails". The City of Dallas, led by city officials such as Dallas Morning News Publisher Dealey, OK'd the rechanneling, but never the beautification project. That part got put on the back burner. While Kessler's plans for the Central Expressway and Union Station received priority much of the plan sat on the shelf—thought to be too aggressive and futuristic at the time of its conception

Dallas Article The Handbook of Texas OnLine.