The area east of I-45 and I-345 extending past White Rock Lake contains layers of Dallas’s growth. Immediately east of downtown, along Elm, Main, and Commerce streets, the Houston and Texas Central Railroad attracted industrial businesses and a freedmen’s town, known as Deep Ellum, of workers and businesses. The district, though often rough, was a cultural mecca, especially for blues musicians. In recent decades, former warehouses have been converted into urban lofts and arts and entertainment venues, without completely gentrifying the neighborhood. A trio of adjacent historic districts (Peak’s, Munger, Swiss) chart the layers of middle- and upper-class residential developments as Dallas grew eastward. Popular architectural styles of the early twentieth century define Peak’s Suburban Addition, developed between 1890 and 1930.
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