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THE ORIGINAL TOWN OF OAK CLIFF comprised just about one square mile east of what is now Marsalis and north of what is now Clarendon.

The

When the suburb of Oak Cliff annexed into the city of Dallas in 1903 with a population around 3,700, it had expanded west as far as Willomet in Winnetka Heights, but was still contained north of Clarendon.

Nowadays the most generous perspective views Oak Cliff as an 87-square-mile section of the city south of the Trinity, from Interstate 30 to the DeSoto city line at Interstate 20, and from Interstate 45 to the Grand Prairie city line past Walton Walker freeway. That’s about a third of the total landmass of Dallas.

The Advocate covers a relatively small portion of that area, about 10 square miles roughly from Interstate 30 to Ledbetter, and from Cockrell Hill Road to Interstate 35. That’s the area some have taken to calling “North Oak Cliff,” which is controversial, but more on that later.

The physical boundaries of Oak Cliff are debatable, but you know you’re here when you’re home.

Original Oak Cliff

Farmers began settling the areas now known as Oak Cliff as early as the 1830s, when this was the Republic of Texas. William Henry Hord arrived from Tennessee in 1845 with his wife and family and three slaves and settled 640 acres just south of the Trinity River on Cedar Creek. This settlement, which became known as Hord’s Ridge, had homes, a gristmill, a boardinghouse and a tavern.

When Thomas Marsalis bought Hord’s land and adjacent acreage in 1887, he renamed it, as real estate developers will do. Since the oak-tree-shaded land was situated above the Trinity, he branded it Oak Cliff and began marketing it as a resort destination. Marsalis eventually went broke, but he invested hundreds of thousands of dollars of his own money into infrastructure, including roads and plumbing. Oak Cliff incorporated as a town in 1890 with about 2,500 residents.

Marsalis and partner John S. Armstrong started the Dallas Land and Loan Co. and began parceling out residential lots in Oak Cliff, including the Ruthmeade Place neighborhood, just south of 12th. Marsalis also developed the park now known as the Dallas Zoo and surrounding neighborhoods, which are part of the original Oak Cliff.

Around the turn of the 20th century, Oak Cliff’s central business district surrounded the retail buildings, some of which are still standing, at Jefferson and Beckley.

Homes in Winnetka Heights began going up around 1910, and at the time, that often was referred to as “west Oak Cliff.”

The first homes in Kessler Park came along in 1923. Purists roughly consider

Homes in Winnetka Heights began going up around 1910, and at the time, that often was referred to as “west Oak Cliff.” this — the Lake Cliff Park area, the zoo area, Winnetka Heights, Kessler Park, Kidd Springs and everything in between — to be the neighborhood called “Oak Cliff.”

If you live south of Clarendon, west of Hampton or east of the zoo, you’re just appropriating the Oak Cliff name, they say. Call it “South Oak Cliff,” call it “East” or “West” Oak Cliff, call it Red Bird or Wynnewood or Highland Hills or Lisbon. But don’t call it just “Oak Cliff.”

That’s a highly offensive position to take in a neighborhood that so fiercely identifies with its brand. Oak Cliff is more than the name of the neighborhood; it’s part of who we are.

South Oak Cliff

The farming communities of Lisbon and Glendale, east of what is now Interstate 35, were annexed into Dallas in the early 20th century. In those areas of what is now Oak Cliff, farmers started selling off their land for housing developments in the 1910s and ’20s. A retail center at Ann Arbor and Lancaster Avenue became a central business district in the 1920s.

In 1912, G.G. Woodin of Chicago bought acreage between Oak Cliff and the village of Lisbon. Woodin named the development Trinity Heights, and he named all of the streets after states. Trinity Heights, roughly bordered by Ledbetter, the Santa Fe Railroad and the Veterans Administration hospital had about 25,000 residents by 1945. By the 1950s, the name Trinity Heights began to fade as real estate agents began lumping together all the developments and villages south of the original Oak Cliff as “South Oak Cliff”

Development began in the Wynnewood area in the 1940s. And South Oak Cliff High School was built in the 1950s.

David Kyle went to South Oak Cliff High School in the ’60s. He grew up in a neighborhood that he describes, depending on to whom he is speaking, as “Oak Cliff,” “behind the V.A. hospital,” or “Lisbon.”

He now lives in Kiestwood and still con- siders the neighborhood “Oak Cliff,” with no modifiers.

South Oak Cliff High School was among the first schools in Dallas to integrate in the 1960s, and Kyle says he remembers the “blockbuster” era of white families selling their homes to black families, sometimes moving in the middle of the night so they wouldn’t have to confront their neighbors. Bigotry toward an influx of African-American neighbors resulted in white families moving out of Oak Cliff and to the suburbs in droves.

Under the old system of at-large City Council seats — members didn’t exclusively represent single districts until the 1990s — South Dallas and South Oak Cliff lacked political leadership. Few in power pulled for those neighborhoods, and for decades they were neglected.

“The west side of Oak Cliff is flourishing in a way that is not happening on the east side of I-35,” Kyle says.

High crime and low economic success on the east side of I-35 made it important to those on the west side to distinguish between Oak Cliff and South Oak Cliff, constructing a definition of “south” that was more than geographical. Much like the South Bronx is defined more by demographics than geography, describing a neighborhood as “South Oak Cliff” sometimes can serve as code to indicate that it is in the “bad part” of Oak Cliff, rather than where it is on the map.