THE 1957 DALLAS TORNADO

Photo Sequence 2

The Dallas Public Library's Texas/Dallas History and Archives section possesses a number of photographs of the tornado and its aftermath, including a particularly interesting sequence of a dozen images taken from near the intersection of Mockingbird Ln. and Harry Hines Blvd. at the site of the later-to-be-built Exchange Park (now UT Southwestern Medical Center's Bass Center). Although classroom teachers and students may have the photos for free, everyone else, including non-commercial educational Web sites such as this one, must pay $24 a pop. Perhaps the library would forgive me at least part of the $288 for having identified the specific vantage point of the photographer, information they do not appear to possess.

Meanwhile, the sequence can be found on the library's Web site. First go here (will open in a new window). Enter “1957 Dallas tornado” (minus the quotes) in the search box and click the "Anywhere" buton. A list containing 35 tornado-related photographs will come up. The photo sequence mentioned above is comprised of numbers 9–20.

The sequence starts out looking south (9-13), then southwest (14-19), and finally west (20). It begins with the tornado probably entering Vilbig St. (9) [N-O]; documents an impressive amount of destruction while following it along and beyond Vilbig (10-12) [O] to where it briefly becomes a sort of mesocyclonic version of a waterspout over the Trinity River (13) [P], which was running levee-to-levee; tracks it from there into and through Arlington Park (14 - 19) [Q] with more destruction very evident; and ends at the point where it is on Harry Hines near the Anson Rd intersection (20) [R]. (More thanks to Trevor Henderson for invaluable assistance in identifying the photographer's otherwise unspecified location.)
 

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Last updated 5 August, 2018