Hidden City

Architecture critic and Pulitzer Prize winner Mark Lamster joins The Hidden City to talk about his book, Welcome to Paradox City , and what Dallas’s buildings reveal about the people and decisions that shaped it. From the debate over Dallas City Hall to the character of Jefferson Boulevard, we explore why Dallas is so quick to tear down the old and build something new, and what gets lost along the...

A mansion filled with screams. A little girl who vanishes along Coombs Creek. A mysterious woman moving through the darkened Texas Theatre. This Halloween, we explore three of Oak Cliff’s strangest ghost stories, tracing the history behind the haunted house at Hampton and Camp Wisdom, the elusive legend of a girl named Mary, and theater employees’ accounts of encounters they still can’t explain. S...

In 1897, years before the first airplane took flight, reports of mysterious airships began appearing across North Texas. One was spotted over Dallas, and just a day later, a newspaper reported that an airship had crashed into a windmill in Aurora, Texas, leaving behind a pilot believed to be from Mars. In this episode, Grant and Doug explore the strange history of the 1897 airship sightings, the a...

Javier García del Moral returns to The Hidden City to talk about what’s new at The Wild Detectives, the upcoming Hay Festival Dallas, and Oak Cliff’s growing literary scene. He shares the story behind opening a second bookstore in Bishop Arts, how an international literary festival found its way to Oak Cliff, and why Dallas is becoming a destination for writers and readers from around the world. W...

Before Arlington became North Texas’s baseball destination, the game belonged to Oak Cliff. In this episode of Hidden City, we uncover the intertwined histories of Burnett Field and Riverside Park - two ballparks just blocks apart, divided by segregation. From the Dallas Black Giants and a stadium fire that briefly brought the white team into their ballpark to Dave Hoskins’s extraordinary 1952 sea...

For this episode, we’re changing things up a bit. Instead of our usual format, we’re telling this story as a more traditional true-crime narrative, taking you inside the investigation and following the clues as they unfold. In 1990, three women connected to the street life along Jefferson Boulevard were murdered in a series of killings that would become one of Dallas’ most notorious true-crime cas...

On April 2, 1957, a powerful tornado tore through Oak Cliff, hitting the Kessler Theater, destroying homes and businesses, and eventually crossing the Trinity into West Dallas. Ten people were killed and around 200 were injured, but the tornado also became an important moment in the history of tornado research. Photographed and filmed from all over Dallas, the storm gave scientists an unprecedente...

Barry and Sandra Nash have called Oak Cliff home for more than 40 years. They join us to talk about what Oak Cliff was like when they first moved here in 1980, the changes they’ve watched unfold over the decades, and the people and places that shaped the neighborhood along the way. We talk about the evolution of Bishop Arts, raising a family in Oak Cliff, Barry’s unexpected career coaching some of...

Before B.B. King, Jimi Hendrix, Chuck Berry, and Stevie Ray Vaughan, there was T-Bone Walker. Born Aaron Thibeaux Walker, he grew up in Oak Cliff’s Tenth Street neighborhood, where he was surrounded by music and crossed paths with some of the blues’ earliest legends, including Blind Lemon Jefferson and Lead Belly. We trace T-Bone’s journey from Tenth Street and the Bottoms to the stages of Los Ang...

Haley Leavitt joins us to share how she found her place in Oak Cliff’s creative community and how an experiment involving salvaged church pews grew into the Oak Cliff Art Walk. What began with 35 artists inside the then-vacant Oak Cliff Assembly drew nearly 1,000 people and has since become an annual platform for artists, residents, and community organizations across the neighborhood. We also talk...

In 1990, Oak Cliff came remarkably close to asking Dallas for a divorce. About 2,000 people packed a public meeting to discuss creating a new city of roughly 310,000 residents, complete with its own government, budget, police and fire departments, libraries, and public works. What began with long-standing complaints about neglected streets, drainage, libraries, code enforcement, and political repr...

For nearly 16 years, Nova has served as a second living room for Oak Cliff, a place where neighbors gather over great food, familiar drinks, and plenty of local characters. In this episode, JD Reid joins the podcast to share how he and his partners transformed a former Dairy Queen on West Davis into one of the neighborhood’s most enduring restaurants, opening with just a handful of menu items and...

Stevens Park is one of Oak Cliff’s most familiar landscapes, but its history stretches far beyond the golf course. What began with Annie Stevens’s 1923 gift of 40 acres in memory of her parents grew into a public park, an 18-hole municipal course, and a neighborhood shaped by the creeks, bluffs, and rolling hills of Oak Cliff. In this episode, we trace the course from its early sand greens to its...

What does it take to build a city where artists can make meaningful work without burning out? Avery-Jai Andrews, executive director of Arts Mission Oak Cliff and founder of Agora Artists, joins the show to talk about returning to Dallas after pursuing dance in New York, the hard lessons of starting her own company, and why supporting the artist matters as much as supporting the art. Avery-Jai shar...

For the final installment of the Hidden City Summer Reading Club, Doug and Grant are joined by Eric Nystrom to discuss Nathanael Johnson’s Unseen City, a book about learning to notice the wildlife hiding in plain sight. From hawks over Elmwood and turtles in Cedar Creek to bald eagles along the Trinity River, the conversation explores the nature woven through Dallas and what we discover when we sl...

Summer Reading Club continues with The Chronicles of Narnia by C.S. Lewis. Joined by Fred Durham of the C.S. Lewis Institute, we explore why these beloved stories continue to resonate with readers of all ages. From talking animals and enchanted forests to themes of courage, redemption, and hope, we discuss what makes Narnia so much more than a children's fantasy series. Along the way, we trace Lew...

Summer Reading Club continues with Theo of Golden by Allen Levi. We explore why this story has resonated with so many readers and how its themes of place, hospitality, and human connection echo the kinds of stories we love to talk about on the podcast. We discuss what the book has to say about truly seeing the people around us and draw connections to Oak Cliff. Whether you've already read the...

We kick off our Summer Reading Club with John Steinbeck's Cannery Row, a novel that finds humor, humanity, and unexpected beauty in the lives of a small working class neighborhood in depression-era California. Grant, Doug, and Savannah discuss why this classic still resonates today, exploring the ways place shapes identity, how community forms in unlikely spaces, and what Cannery Row can teach...

Before Reunion Tower and the Dallas skyline, there was La Réunion, a French utopian colony on the banks of the Trinity River. In this episode, Grant and Doug explore how a group of European settlers came to North Texas hoping to build a new kind of society, why the experiment failed, and how its residents helped shape early Dallas through culture, business, science, and civic life. It's the st...

Carlos De La Fuente has been part of Oak Cliff since 1974, and few people know the neighborhood's history quite like he does. In this episode, Carlos shares the story of immigrating to Dallas as a child, growing up in Oak Cliff, working at the Dallas Farmers Market, and leaving a stable aviation career to pursue his dream of entrepreneurship. We talk about the early days of ABC Party, the ment...

Philip Haigh, Executive Director of The Loop Dallas, joins the podcast to talk about the ambitious effort to connect Dallas through a 50-mile trail network. From discovering the bike-friendly culture of Oak Cliff to leading one of the city's most transformative public space projects, Philip shares how trails can change the way people experience their neighborhoods and their city. The conversat...

In this episode, we explore the story of 10th Street, one of the most important surviving Freedman’s Town landscapes in the United States. Long before I35 cut through Oak Cliff, 10th Street was a thriving African American community built by formerly enslaved people and their descendants. Through churches, schools, businesses, homes, and family networks, residents created a neighborhood where gener...

Sean Springer, founder of Springer Design Studio, joins The Hidden City to talk about his journey from studying sculpture at RISD to building a woodworking and design practice rooted in craftsmanship, healing, and creativity. Sean shares how working with reclaimed wood shaped his artistic path, the philosophy behind his handmade objects, and why materials like wood still feel deeply alive to him....

Illustrator and designer Zach Stuef joins The Hidden City to talk about moving from Michigan to Dallas, building a creative life through illustration, and why he still starts every project with pen and paper. We talk about collaboration, theology, concert posters, Oak Cliff creative community, and the tension between handmade art and AI-generated work. Savannah steps in as co-host for this episode...

Dallas once had a real plan to become a port city, with boats traveling from the Gulf of Mexico all the way up the Trinity River into the heart of Dallas. In this episode, we trace the strange and ambitious history of the “Port of Dallas” and how Oak Cliff sat directly in the path of that dream. From devastating floods and disappearing bridges to the construction of the Oak Cliff Viaduct and the r...