Fair Park: Art Deco & the Texas Centennial

In 1936 Texas threw itself a hundredth-birthday party, and Dallas won the right to host the main event. The Texas Centennial Exposition transformed the State Fair grounds into a dazzling complex of Art Deco halls, murals, and fountains, employing thousands in the depths of the Depression and leaving behind what is now the largest collection of 1930s Deco architecture in the nation. This walk through Fair Park takes in the marker for the exposition itself, the magnificent Hall of State, a tribute to a legendary Texas racehorse, the grand Esplanade where Big Tex now towers over the State Fair each autumn, the African American Museum, and the storied Cotton Bowl stadium. The grounds are vast and the buildings are spectacular, so take your time, look up at the friezes and statuary, and picture the place as it was in 1936 — alive with fountains, neon, and a million visitors.