This is a photo of the 1908 flood, where the Trinity River reached a flood stage of over 52 feet. The river was up to two miles wide, and destroyed the bridges and ferries across it. It went to the edge of Hord’s Ridge (Oak Cliff today), and was impassable for weeks. The railroad bridge is the Texas and Pacific Railroad trestle, which lined up with Pacific Avenue, which runs one block from Dealey Plaza, behind the TSBD. When one of these trestles was washed away, 4 men on it were killed, and hundreds of horrified Dallas citizens watched the tragedy. The railroad tracks in the lower right corner are the same ones that are on the Triple Overpass, about where Elm, Main and Commerce go under them today. This flood prompted the move of the Trinity River from this, its normal location, to over one mile west.

Because of the flood, the cries of Dallas citizens to do something about the river were added to the city planning push by G. B. and the Morning News. However, the heat and sun of July soon dried up the river, and it was not long before people were once again driving over the gravel and dried mud road leading to West Dallas and Oak Cliff. It may have been soon forgotten, except Dealey started pushing for a viaduct across the entire river basin, modeled after an 1 ½ mile causeway across the Missouri, in Kansas City, Dealey had seen while visiting in-laws.

Dealey continued to push his viaduct and city planning issues, citing the disastrous 1908 flood as the consequences of city planning being ignored. He eventually successfully convinced the city to build the Houston St. viaduct in 1923. At that time, the viaduct was the horizontally longest concrete (not stone) structure in the US. The promoting also succeeded in a bond election in 1927-8 to build levies and redirect the Trinity River, to a point about 1 mile to the west of downtown Dallas (where it sits today).