When Munger Place came to Dallas in the beginning of 1905 it did very much for Dallas by providing a great neighborhood for the city. While it gave much to the city it also caused some problems for the city as well.

At the south end of Munger Place was Columbia Avenue. Munger Place and Columbia were divided by the alley between Reiger street at the end of Munger Place. The alley came from the end of Elm at Carroll Avenue and was called Elm Alley and later called Centre. Columbia began at Carroll Avenue where Main and Elm ended.

Sometime between 1890 to 1905 the eastern boundary of Dallas moved to Fitzhugh and then to Henderson Street. Columbia grew to become the community market place around Collett and Fitzhugh. Later Columbia grew from Carroll to Beacon adding many buildings on its streets as well as large Greek revival columned homes and small cottages. For fifty years between 1906 and 1955, Columbia supported Munger Place.

Dallas was proud of Munger Place but its city officials often ignored it by overlooking plans George Kessler had presented to incorporate nature into street design. Dallas also allowed developers to destroy parts of the Munger Place residential neighborhood with commercial and multifamily development. Other nearby areas were also affected.

However, Munger Place also caused the city problems by filling up creeks with earth that subsequently caused many floods. Even now Dallas is having to spend great sums of money to build large sewers to alleviate the flooding where Peak Creek and Mill Creek once were.

Dallas has had many problems in the east side of the city and from Columbia Avenue in the dark times from the 1960’s to today. But now we may have the potential for a transformation of Columbia Avenue to rebound to supporting Munger Place after 57 years.

All of these things will be discussed.