This ghost sign can be found on the east side of a historic building built in 1902 at 2528 Elm street in the Deep Ellum/Central Track area of Dallas. Source: Dallas Central Appraisal District website (
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Here is the original Burford, Stemmons, and Williams addition map from the Murphy and Bolenz block book 1 page 161: (
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The T&P sign takes up most of the side of the building (the building is built on Block 9 of the addition map - cool, huh?).
BUT -- there is another ghost lurking. A fragment of a ghost sign extending downwards from the north edge of the building says "OTEL." We could not read anything else except that.
This was what we knew:
* That this large building had a lot of windows.
* That it was built around the turn of the century (later we learned it was built in 1902).
* That the Houston and Texas Central Railroad crossed Elm street just a few hundred feet west.
* That if you add an H to OTEL you get -- a railroad hotel.
We took that info and began digging.
In the Dallas City Directory from 1910, we learned that Central Avenue intersected Elm street in the 500 block of Elm. That gave us an address range. Working our way through that block in the directory we found this entry: (
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"595 [Elm] Central Hotel"
Ta daa!! It makes PERFECT SENSE that a railroad hotel would have a huge railroad0themed advertisement on it. Even better -- the Texas & Pacific Railroad ran through this part of Dallas only 1 1/2 blocks away -- on Pacific Ave. That's some fun history-map-geek stuff!! :)
The waymarked T&P ghost sign reads as follows:
"4 INTERSTATE GATEWAYS
[T&P Diamond Logo:
(in the center) T&P
(around the edges of the T&P diamond)
El Paso
Texarkana
New Orleans
Shreveport]
ELEGANT PASSENGER SERVICE
23 HOURS to ST LOUIS
FREE RECLINING CHAIR CARS
THROUGH SLEEPERS TO NASHVILLE"
Less than a day to St. Louis must have been a big deal, because those are the largest, most eye-catching letters on the sign.