Dallas to unveil historical markers to memorialize victims of racial violence
The city of Dallas Park and Recreation Department, Remembering Black Dallas and Dallas County Justice Initiative will unveil two Texas Historical Markers to memorialize Dallas victims of 19th-century racially motivated violence.
One marker remembers Jane Elkins, the first enslaved person to be purchased in Dallas County and the first woman to be legally hanged in Texas.
The second is dedicated to “The Fire & Lynchings of 1860.” Three Dallas slaves falsely accused of starting a destructive fire in downtown Dallas — Sam Smith, Patrick Jennings and “Old Cato — were hanged on newly built gallows at what is now Martyrs Park.
Martyrs Park, less than an acre in size, is a newly renovated downtown park that includes new landscaping with crepe myrtles lining a newly installed walking path, irises planted on newly built berms and shrubs gracing the park entrance.
