Preston Road -- Dallas TX
N 32° 50.156 W 096° 48.322
14S E 705412 N 3635232
Preston Road was laid out in the 1840s along an ancient Pre-Columbian Indian route through North Texas. This route is now also known as State Highway 289.
Waymark Code: WMP4YB
Location: Texas, United States
Date Posted: 07/01/2015
Views: 10
A historic marker in an upscale shopping center along Preston Road sketches the history of this road, which was built along an ancient Indian trace.
The marker reads as follows:
"PRESTON ROAD
Named for Ft. Preston; built 1841 at best ford on upper Red River (N. of here). Followed pre-Columbian Indian trail.
Republic of Texas staked out road to fort from Austin. "Preston Road" later served as cattle trail from ford of Trinity River at Dallas to Oklahoma border.
(1968)"
We also found this article in the handbook of Texas online: (
visit link)
"OLD PRESTON ROAD.
The Old Preston Road was originally part of a major Indian trail that extended from near the site of present St. Louis, Missouri, to southwestern Texas. Between 1840 and the coming of the railroad three decades later, the road was the principal immigrant route into northern Texas.
It was completed in 1843 by soldiers under the command of Col. William Gordon Cooke, who had been in charge of surveying a route for the Military Road for the Republic of Texas. The road started near the community of Preston Bend in present Grayson County.
Emigrants from the north crossed the Red River just below its confluence with the Washita River at a ford known as Rock Bluff Crossing. From there the route generally followed the divide between the East Fork and the Elm Fork of the Trinity River. The southern terminus was at the settlement of Cedar Springs, now a part of downtown Dallas.
Texas cattlemen knew the road as part of the Shawnee Trail. By 1870 the main cattle trails were farther west, but the Preston Road was still the most important route for immigrant and freighter traffic in north central Texas. However, the Missouri, Kansas and Texas Railroad bridge across the Red River was built in 1872 at Denison, twelve miles downstream from Preston, and, with the major flow of traffic bypassing it both east and west, the road declined in importance.
After little more than a year it had the same status as other local rural roads. Within the city limits of Dallas, State Highway 289 is routed along a boulevard called Preston Road. Between Dallas and the intersection with U.S. Highway 82 west of Sherman, the state highway closely parallels a section of the route of the original Old Preston Road."