History of Deep Ellum

The railroads created Deep Elm. The Houston and Texas Central (H&TC) Railroad arrived in Dallas in 1872, followed by the Texas and Pacific (T&P) Railroad in 1873. The crossing of the two lines is considered the birth of a community on the outer edge of downtown Dallas that people called Deep Elm.

The name Deep Ellum derives from the dialects of the people who worked there. At its heart, Deep Ellum was a place where the cultures of the world converged — Blacks, Jews, Greeks, Italians, Mexicans, Czechs, and others, fleeing the oppression of their homelands, looking for a better life.

The district boasts
over 20 historically recognized buildings.

Deep Ellum was born in 1873 when the Texas and Pacific (T&P) Railroad crossed the Houston and Texas Central (H&TC) Railroad near the intersection of Elm Street and Central Avenue. The area came to be called “Deep Ellum,” derived from “Deep Elm,” reflecting its distance from downtown. The pronunciation reflected the dialects of the people who frequented the area. In its early years, Deep Ellum was a place where day laborers were picked up and dropped off, many taken to work in the cottonfields. With the expansion of the railroads came commercial and industrial development and a thriving entertainment sector. Deep Ellum was a crossroads, a nexus, where people interacted in relative freedom. Deep Ellum is still a work in progress, as perhaps it always was.

The State of Texas named Deep Ellum a Cultural District in 2020. In 2023, the Deep Ellum Historic District was listed in the National Register of Historic Places in celebration of Deep Ellum’s 150th anniversary. The Deep Ellum Historic District encompasses the area bounded by the DART Green line to the north, South Hall Street to the south, I-345 to the west, and I-30 to the east.

Migration

The blues emerged in the 1890s to express the hardships of newly freed Black Americans. With the growth of the nascent recording industry in the 1920s, blues musicians from around the South flocked to Deep Ellum hoping to be discovered. In Deep Ellum, downhome blues during this period was performed largely by men informally and on the street. The Ella B. Moore Theater on North Central Avenue presented some of the greatest female blues artists of the day.

The emergence of jazz paralleled the growth of blues in Deep Ellum. While early jazz musicians may have come from East Texas, others were from New Orleans and other areas of the African American diaspora in the South.

African American religious music had a profound interaction with the development of blues, jazz, and popular music, from rhythm & blues and rock ‘n’ roll to doo woo, soul, rap, and hip hop. Deep Ellum’s greatest exponents of what has been called “holy blues” were Blind Willie Johnson, Washington Phillips, and Arizona Dranes.

The distinctive sound of Western swing derives from the cross-fertilization of White and Black musical traditions and reflects the influence of popular culture, including Mexican American norteño and Czech and Bohemian polka.

Music

Throughout its history, Deep Ellum has also been a place for visual artists to come and make a name for themselves through a vibrant community of galleries, street murals, public art, and other public displays of creativity. Deep Ellum’s many music venues, restaurants and businesses have commissioned local artists to paint murals on their walls for decades. This tradition continues today with over 100 creative, colorful paintings displayed across the district.

Business & Commerce

From its beginnings as a railroad crossing in the 1870s to today, Deep Ellum has been an incubator for business and commerce, from the City Hotel, opened in 1892 at 2528 Elm Street, to The Pittman Hotel, opened in 2020 at 2551 Elm Street. With the elevation of North Central Expressway, the 2400 and 2300 blocks of Elm Street were razed. Since 2015, there has been tremendous commercial, office, and residential growth.

Arts & Culture

For more than a century, Deep Ellum has been a center of creative activity, attracting the attention of artists, writers, musicians, restaurateurs, designers, architects, among others. The 1920s and 1930s are generally considered the first heyday of Deep Ellum. With the onslaught of the Great Depression and in the aftermath of World War II, the cultural life of Deep Ellum declined. In the 1980s and 1990s, Deep Ellum transformed with the opening of music venues, galleries, and theaters that continues today.

Deep Ellum Community Center

Step into the Deep Ellum Community Center—a welcoming destination for visitors offering tours, history exhibitions, and helpful resources like maps. Explore our permanent exhibit showcasing Deep Ellum’s rich history, along with rotating temporary exhibitions aimed at sparking public interest, education, and dialogue about our neighborhood’s profound impact on Dallas’s cultural scene.

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Deep Ellum Archive

A partnership with The Dallas Public Library, The Deep Ellum Archive collects, organizes, and makes available to the public for research, learning, and exhibition the rich and varied history of Deep Ellum. This new dedicated archive features specific collections on the district’s murals, music history, and architectural development as well as in-depth oral stories of business owners, property owners, residents, artists, musicians and members of the community. The Deep Ellum Community Center will continuously feature rotating exhibits showcasing key pieces from this new Deep Ellum Archive.

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