A century ago, West Dallas was a poor, mostly white, unincorporated home for folks on the edge of society. As industry came, black families moved in — then Latinos, who put down roots that still run deep today. The one thread that connects all those people? Poverty. And that’s just now starting to change. Glitzy apartments and tougher housing standards are forcing out hundreds of families who’ve called West Dallas home for generations — many with no place to go.

Driving from downtown to West Dallas got a whole lot grander five years ago. A majestic white arch reaching 400 feet high makes the Margaret Hunt Hill Bridge a landmark that defines a city. The bridge, designed by Santiago Calatrava, is sleek and fast; you zip across the Trinity River with the Dallas skyline in your rearview, and dead ahead: a restaurant mecca.

Spiced lamb skewers, duck fat fried rice, a shop that sells nothing but cake. Trinity Groves’ open air patios are mobbed every weekend. Venture a little deeper into the neighborhood, past the valet stands and happy hour crowd, and the scene shifts. In front of small, weathered homes — folks watch the world from their front porches. You can hear the birds, maybe an ice cream truck.

“You don’t have to be rich you know, a home can be whatever you make it,” says longtime West Dallas resident, Ronnie Mestas. “For the most part this is a pretty quiet neighborhood really. Sit out in the front, or cook in the back, I just love it.”

Mestas says it’s the same West Dallas that’s been here for generations, before a bridge made it easy for the rest of North Texas to find. To understand this part of the neighborhood, you have to go back in time — all the way to the Great Depression.

NEW BRIDGE, NEW CHANGES

Those soaring white cables of Calatrava’s bridge came with a price tag just south of $200 million. Critics ripped it as a “Bridge to Nowhere,” which didn’t sit well with the 15,000 people who lived on the other side.

“It’s hurtful to hear people say that you live nowhere, or that you work nowhere or that you go to school or you teach nowhere,” Nippert says.

The bridge was a straight shot that linked downtown Dallas to the community that had always been in its shadow. Doug Swanson, who spent so much time there three decades ago, says the lightning fast building boom caught just about everybody off guard.

“I mean you could obviously see the change coming, and then the apartments started going up, and I thought, ‘well I’m really an old-timer now’ because I never would have thought that you would see any development like that in West Dallas. And I also thought, ‘what’s going to happen to the people who have been living here?’”

Ronnie Mestas is asking that question, too. The neighborhood leader says it’s impossible to ignore the changing face of West Dallas.

“I call it the wall. It’s the financial wall, those new apartments that are right there, you know?” Mestas says, “because it just looks like it blocks out the whole neighborhood.”

You can see that divide on Singleton Boulevard, just west of Sylvan Avenue. On one side, an empty lot where multi-story apartments and townhomes are taking shape; on the other, a rundown commercial strip, and behind that, hundreds of houses that date to the 1940s.

“People been here their lifetime, and it’s hard for them to move out, you know?,” Joe Garcia says.

That’s right. Garcia and 300 other families living in houses no longer up to city code are staring down a June 3 move-out deadline.

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The Story Of West Dallas From Bonnie And Clyde To Margaret Hunt Hill