How Did Dallas Get Its Name?

Here's a weird thing about Dallas. No one knows how it got its name. The city of Dallas has no answer, and founder John Neely Bryan didn't leave us any clues. He's said to have claimed to name it after his buddy Dallas, but no one is quite sure who that buddy is. Vice President George Mifflin Dallas? Maybe, but did Bryan know him? It's doubtful. (Either way let's be glad he didn't go with "Mifflin.")

Weirdly, most people are pretty confident that Dallas County was named for VP George Mifflin, but they're not convinced about the origin of the city's name. Even others suggest, inspired by Bryan's eventual commitment to a psychiatric word, that the friend he referred to wasn't even a real person.

Others have cited potential suspects as Alexander James Dallas and Trevanion (!) Barlow Dallas. And we can be sure it's not named for Bryce Dallas Howard, as that was the other way round. And I will bet $30 that it isn't named for the character played by Todd Farmer in the 2001 horror film Jason X, despite his appearance on a Wikipedia list of famous people named Dallas.

Meanwhile, there are several Dallases in the world named for a small town in Scotland, so there's potential there was an influence there, but again, it's all inconclusive!

So there you have it. An article that opens with a question and closes by not answering that question. You're... welcome?

Want a chance to actually learn something about Dallas? With educational, entertaining quests through the DFW a rea, DFW Scavenger Hunt combines his tory, culture, and brain teasers into a competitive race!

I suppose I owe you a puzzle for your trouble, and this one's inspired by, what else, the name of our fair city. Each clue below leads to a word that can be spelled using only the letters of DALLAS. Numbers in parenthesis indicate word length. Can you identify them all?

1. It completes the Simpsons quote "You don't win friends with..." (5)
2. "Oh woe is me!" (4)
3. Young fellas (4)
4. Spots (3)
5. Word that can follow CURE or AFTER (3)
6. Like someone who says "Oh woe is me!" (3)
7. Green or Gore (2)

Scroll on down for the answers to these questions, at least!


































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1. SALAD
2. ALAS
3. LADS
4. ADS
5. ALL
6. SAD
7. AL