A Dallas history lesson on: "I-30, The Canyon," a physical and social wall

In the mid-1950s, Dallas was caught up in the national fervor of urban renewal. City leaders were eager to modernize, and in 1957, they celebrated the completion of what was then called the "East-West Highway" (later I-30).

It was a point of immense civic pride. "The city was quite proud of this fabulous new turnpike," local historian Evelyn Montgomery says. "They had postcards you could buy showing the looping interchanges and toll booths." It promised a futuristic, high-speed connection to Fort Worth, bypassing the slow "old Fort Worth highway."

But that progress came at a steep price. To create the "Canyon," engineers dug deep into the earth, literally wiping out the existing street grid.

"They dug and they wiped out both older, expensive Victorian homes in the southern part of downtown and a lot of the Cedars, which was an industrial and working-class area," Montgomery explains. The highway even swallowed half of Old City Park, the city’s very first park.

The result was a psychological and physical barrier. Before the highway, the streets flowed naturally from Downtown into the Cedars. Afterward, if you lived south of the line, you were on the "other side."

"It was like a wall around a medieval city," says Montgomery. "It made anybody south of it feel like they could no longer get to downtown anymore."

The Human Cost

The construction didn't just move dirt; it moved people. The Cedars and South Dallas were cohesive, thriving neighborhoods filled with immigrants and working-class residents who supported one another.

While the project was fueled by socioeconomic factors, it also had a racial impact. By the 1950s, South Dallas was becoming a predominantly African American community. "That helped make it seem, I guess, more acceptable to leave it outside the area of the central city," Montgomery notes.

The long-term vision for I-30 includes the possibility of deck parks—green spaces built over the highway—similar to Klyde Warren Park or the one currently being built over I-35 in Southern Dallas.

The goal is to reconnect the Cedars to Downtown, turning the "Canyon" back into a neighborhood. However, Montgomery warns that renewal often brings its own challenges, like gentrification, which can push out the very people the city is trying to reconnect.

"You can't undo the effects of history," she says. "But trying to right a historic wrong is always a worthy cause."

If you are heading out this weekend, remember that I-30 will be closed in both directions near Downtown. Plan for delays.