WHEN DALLAS BECAME A CITY: LETTERS OF JOHN MILTON MC COY, 1870 – 1881.

Dallas: Dallas Historical Society, 1982. x,176pp. Index. Laid-in is a “birds’ eye” of early Dallas. Illustrations. Notes. Edited by Elizabeth York Enstam. Designed by Steve Schuster. Foreword by Millicent Hume McCoy. Bound in oatmeal colored linen with brown leather spine, title in gilt on the spine. First edition, limited edition of 100 copies. SIGNED by Elizabeth Enstam, Steve Schuster, and Millicent Hume McCoy. Fine copy (no dust jacket issued). McCoy arrived in Dallas in November 1870 after the death of his first wife and joined the law firm of his uncle, John C. McCoy, Dallas’ first practicing attorney. His series of letters, written primarily to his mother, represents a primary source on the history of Dallas in this period. They describe how Dallas was transformed from a “Southern country market town into a boom town.”  McCoy tells the story of daily life in a thriving frontier town and give insight into the customs and values of late nineteenth-century America. He writes about the city’s positives as well as its negatives. McCoy expresses concern about the drinking, prostitution, and gambling that is so prevalent. Yet he also advocates for the community’s economic potential as well as the civilized virtues of its intelligent church-going citizens. His letters include information on many of Dallas’ prominent citizens, such as Catharine Coit, Henry Ervay, Maximilien Reverchon and others. He describes the new courthouse, the iron bridge across the Trinity River and the small homes along cedar-lined Commerce Street. McCoy also includes descriptions of Fort Worth, Austin, San Antonio and other places in Texas. All this is enhanced by the editor’s well-written commentary accompanying the letters. An important work about early Dallas.