Agricultural Sites in Dallas!

Dallas is a city of architecture, history and cowboys! This February we went to see the Dallas sites. Along the way we also discovered some agricultural sites in Dallas. We saw many of the stops during our tour. We met our guide at the Kennedy Memorial. The Memorial was created by architect Philip Johnson in 1970. It is a square shaped granite sculpture. It is 60 feet tall and 30 feet wide, with an open center.

Our fun guide Tanya arrived in a golf cart like conveyance with steer horns on the front. My husband Keith thought she had a resemblance to one of his favorite actresses Marisa Tomei!

Pioneer Plaza

Pioneer Plaza is one of the most visited sites in Dallas. Honoring the cowboy past, the plaza has a statue recreating a longhorn cattle drive. Created by Robert Summers of Glen Rose, Texas, this may be the largest bronze sculpture in the world! This park is a great place to take photos. Here you can see early agriculture as it was!

Pioneer Plaza is the largest public open space in the central Dallas business district.  There is also a cemetery with a Civil War Memorial nearby!

Dallas Farmer’s Market

It was so cool when Tanya wheeled us into the Dallas Farmer’s Market. In the midst of skyscrapers is the market. We spied a cool Farmall tractor in the center of it all! It was so cute when she said, “A farmer once owned that tractor.”

The market opened in 1941. I love that the website shares, “Once a humble horse-and-wagon wholesale business, the market has grown with the city and turned into a hub for farm-fresh vegetables, dairy and more.”

We shopped for a bit and found a delectable treat and wonderful jewelry. It is a great place to see fresh produce. This agricultural site in Dallas is a jewel in the midst of the city.

The Sixth Floor Museum at the Texas School Depository

This JFK Sixth Floor Museum at the Texas School Depository is here because it is the site where Lee Harvey Oswald allegedly hot President John F. Kennedy. However, before it became a book depository, and place of such sadness there was other history. There is a lot of agricultural history in this building, and this place. The site was once a wagon shop in the 1880’s run by French native Maxime Guillot. The land was then purchased by the president of the Rock Island Plow Company of Illinois. They built a building to use as offices for the Southern Rock Island Plow Company. In 1901, the five-story building was destroyed by fire.

Later that same year, the building was rebuilt to resemble its previous Romanesque architecture. Everyone knows what happened later on….

During our tour of the museum, we also saw the freight elevator which could have been used during the Rock Island Plow days.

Moline Plow Company

Our last agriculture find was located while shopping and looking for food! We traveled to Dallas over Valentines Day. Searching for a Valentine’s Day dinner, we found a fun neighborhood in the West End historic district with a cool restaurant named Chet’s. While exploring this neighborhood, I looked up and noticed a building with the classic name MOLINE in bold letters above the doorway. The time period was right for this to be a Moline Plow branch house. It was so cool to see this in a downtown Dallas neighborhood. We just attended the Winter Minneapolis Moline convention. This is hosted by the Minneapolis Moline Collectors Club. We spoke with Paul Searl, an MM historian who confirmed that this would have been a Moline building. We had fun searching for agricultural sites in Dallas.

Everywhere I go, I check for agricultural finds. It was fun to see farm roots in Dallas among the city lights! Where have you been lately that you have found neat agricultural history?