Historic Fair Park in Dallas

The city of Dallas contains an area called Fair Park. This area is over 277 acres of culture, history and museums. The annual State Fair of Texas has been held in this place since 1886. Fair Park is a designated National Historic Landmark due to its Art Deco architecture that was created for the 1936 Texas Centennial Exposition. The men responsible for the Art Deco designs were architect George Dahl and Paul Cret. They created a unique mix of Art Deco with a Texas/Southwestern flavor.

The Age of Steam museum located in Fair Park is a wonderland for train enthusiasts of all ages. Included in the collection is the Union Pacific "Big Boy" number 4018. These were the largest engines ever built and only around five are still in existence. This collection is one of the finest in the country with a complete pre-WWII passenger train. It includes a Post Office car, baggage car, coaches, Pullman sleeping cars and a dining car. There are also fine examples of diesel and electric locomotives, one of which is a red and silver Santa Fe engine. The museum also includes various pieces of signals and artifacts, which are all available for viewing. To complete the visit, the gift shop is located in a restored 1905 Houston and Texas Central Depot.

The Dallas Museum of Natural History plays a huge role in researching and displaying the current and past history of Texas. There are over 280,000 at the museum, with new displays rotating on a regular basis. Staff members include working archaeologists, paleontologists, naturalists, geologists and anthropologists. This museum displayed the first mounted Texas dinosaur and has the world's largest exhibit of Texas wildlife habitats. They have skeletons of a Tyrannosaurus Rex, mammoth and an Alamosaurus to name a few as well as dinosaur eggs. The museum has a series of regular nature and science lectures.