The momentum carrying the story of the Bankhead Highway in Texas and its ties to Garland have made strong strides today in an article by Ray Leszcynski in the Dallas Morning News. The article gives credit to Garland native and researcher Jerry Flook for the being the impetus to this momentum. I recently featured a four-part installment covering Mr Flook's research paper that was presented to the Texas Historical Commission; the first was here. Links to the other installments are easy to follow from there, including a PDF of the paper available for download at the final installment.
 
Today's article ties the Garland perspective to other parts of the Metroplex. The paper-version features a number of photos that are not available online at the DMN site. I suggest keeping your copy or grabbing one at the newsstand. Also, additional information has been posted at the DMN Garland Blog, including images of vintage maps.
 

From the Dallas Morning News, Aug 18:

Research yields recognition for historically significant Bankhead Highway

12:00 AM CDT on Tuesday, August 18, 2009
By RAY LESZCYNSKI / The Dallas Morning News
rleszcynski@dallasnews.com
 
With its century-old buildings, annual parades and downtown businesses that savor their link to history, Garland's Main Street is a lot like Main Street in a lot of other places.
 

From left: Garland businessman Robert Smith, Mayor Pro Tem Laura Cox, state Rep. Carol Kent, researcher Jerry Flook and City Council member John Willis pushed for historical recognition of the Bankhead Highway. Credit: Melanie Burford/DMN [Click to enlarge]

Exactly alike, as it turns out. An effort to celebrate the city's heritage led to the rediscovery of the Bankhead Highway, the nation's first paved road between Washington, D.C., and San Diego.
 
Not only is Main Street in Garland part of the Bankhead, so is Main Street in Grand Prairie, Lancaster Avenue in Fort Worth, Davis Street in Oak Cliff and hundreds of other streets like them across 13 states.
 
"Garland sort of has a dearth of Texas historical markers, so I was wondering what we could pursue," said native Jerry Flook, who researched the project. "Definitely, the Bankhead showed to be eligible."
 
Although it was commissioned in 1916 as the nation's second transcontinental highway, the Bankhead had no official designation in Texas.
 
"There was no program for recognizing historic highways across the state," Garland City Council member John Willis said.
 
So Garland officials turned to their first-term state representative, Carol Kent, and she went to work establishing the Texas Historic Roads and Highways Program and getting the Bankhead designated as a Texas Historic Highway. Willis and Mayor Pro Tem Laura Cox went to Austin to offer testimony, and HB 2642 and 2644 were signed into law June 19.
 
With the enabling legislation approved, Robert Smith, who has just renovated a building on the downtown square, paid for a historic marker. It's now in the hands of the Texas Historical Commission.
 
"The state is not funding the markers, but this is where Garland is a great example," Kent said. "Volunteers step up and fund the signage or the marker downtown. What you see right here amongst these people is what we want to have happen across the state."
 
Kent said 37 Texas House districts are touched by the Bankhead. She would like to see an association that links the communities and provides a network for their activities.
 
Flook said that is what happened in connection with the Dixie Overland Highway, a road in East Texas that he researched while living in Forney.
 
"They never sought a historic marker, but they had an association that had road trips, garage sale days and multiple communities working together," he said. "That would seem to be logical for the Bankhead, too."
 
Grand Prairie Mayor Pro Tem Ruthe Jackson suggests an annual Bankhead Highway Day.
 
"Somebody needs to take that up who's not 88 years old going on 89," said Jackson, who followed the route into the city when her parents moved from Oak Cliff in 1931.
 
Michael Amonett, president of the Old Oak Cliff Conservation League, is eager to link the history to Davis Street.
 
"What's cool is that Davis goes through Winnetka Heights, King's Highway and Bishop Arts," he said. "It connects three historic areas.
 
"But Davis Street is also part of a 350-acre privately funded land use study for rezoning. My hope would be it gives them pause to realize the history of the area they're tinkering with," Amonett said. "People don't want to see all new and shiny. They want to see part of who we were, and that's what we have here."
 
West of Oak Cliff, Davis Street becomes Grand Prairie's Main Street. The road is also designated State Highway 180 and generally remembered as the Bankhead, but Jackson says that's not the exact route.
 
"It's not Highway 180 as we know today. It's kind of wandered paths," she said. "We still have two little bridges from the old Bankhead Highway. You can see them a lot better in the wintertime when the trees around them have lost their leaves."
 
Grand Prairie spokeswoman Amy Sprinkles said the city has plans to mark the highway this year, soon after it celebrates its 100th year of incorporation.
 
Recognizing history is at the heart of Kent's legislation, rather than dedicating a new highway in the name of a historical figure, which has been the trend in Texas.
 
"These are historic paths, not just celebratory roads," Kent said. "It's not honorific. The Bankhead is an actual, historic, traveled-upon route."
 

 
UPDATE: The Bankhead Hwy also ran through Abilene. Follow this link to a short but very nicely done presentation by the Abilene Preservation League.