Oak Cliff Train Trestle to Become Historic Landmark
By Rachel Stone for the Oak Cliff Advocate
A piece of Oak Cliff transportation history is set to become a City of Dallas Historic Landmark.
The Mountain Creek Bridge was constructed in 1930 and built to last centuries, although it was only in service for about five years.
A remnant of the bridge, off Jefferson about a quarter mile west of Cockrell Hill, was part of the Texas Interurban Railway, a system of electric passenger trains that moved people all over Texas beginning in the early 1900s. This bridge was part of the line that came through Oak Cliff down Jefferson Boulevard and on to Fort Worth.
In 1930, the Gulf, Colorado & Santa Fe Railroad needed an 8-mile spur to move materials to and from Cement City. But that line needed to cross the interurban line. So the rail road and Dallas County split the cost to build the 45-foot tall, 400-foot long Mountain Creek Bridge. They also excavated to lower Jefferson Boulevard and build the new railway spur between the two, creating a triple underpass. That is all explained in detail in a paper, embedded below, written by Michael Amonett, a landmark commissioner and past president of the Old Oak Cliff Conservation League.
In 1951, Dallas County Commissioner Denver Seale wanted to tear down the bridge because he thought Jefferson Boulevard needed to be widened eventually. Seale told the Dallas Morning News at the time, however, that the bridge would be too expensive to destroy