Contrary to popular belief, there's no oil in glitzy, status-conscious
DALLAS
. Since its foundation as a prairie trading post, by Tennessee lawyer John Neely Bryan and his Arkansan friend Joe Dallas in 1841, successive generations of
entrepreneurs
have amassed wealth here through trade and finance, using first cattle and later oil reserves as collateral. One early group of European settlers of the 1850s a group of French intellectuals and artists known as the La Reunion co-operative had to pack up and move on after a series of summer droughts and a harsh winter; the few who stayed would include a future mayor of Dallas. The city still prides itself on their legacy of arts and high culture.
Arrival And Information :
Dallas is served by two major
airports. Dallas/Fort Worth
(DFW) (tel 972/574-4420, ), as big as Manhattan and the world's second busiest airport, is exactly midway between the two cities (around 17 miles from each). Telephones in the baggage claim area link up to a variety of different
shuttle buses
, such as Super Shuttle (tel 817/329-2000, ) and Discount Shuttle (tel 817/267-5150, ), all charging around $15 to downtown;
taxis
cost around $40 (Yellow/Checker tel 214/426-6262). The other major airport,
Love Field
(tel 214/670-6080), used mostly by Southwest Airlines, lies about nine miles northwest of Dallas, from where taxis to downtown cost around $15, shuttles charge $9, or you can take bus #39 to downtown for a total of $1. Greyhound is at 205 S Lamar St downtown, while Amtrak's 1916 Union Station is further west at 400 S Houston St. The Trinity Railway Express service goes east to Richland Hills; once construction is completed, the service will continue to downtown Fort Worth. More Dallas information...
TURTLE CREEK/UPTOWN / DALLAS The Hotel Crescent Court in trendy Uptown sits close to major corporate HQs and the flagship Neiman-Marcus; nightclubs and restaurants of the touristy West End, fashionable McKinney Avenue and bohemia
NEXT TO GALLERIA / DALLAS To the delight of shoppers, the Hilton Lincoln Centre stands in prestigious North Dallas opposite the 200 high-end shops of the Galleria Mall, where they can buy everything from diamonds to denim.