The hardscape spine of the Buckeye Trail connects three circles symbolically extending, and inviting, the Ideal+Bonton communities into the Great Trinity Forest.
The Ideal Addition, completed in 1924, and the Bonton Addition, completed in 1932, were among other racially-segregated residential developments constructed in the South Dallas Trinity floodplain. Bexar Street was the center of economic and entertainment activity with locally-owned businesses. Like the Great Trinity Forest, the neighborhoods were surrounded or bisected by railroads, highways, and industrial and agricultural uses and, buffeted by socioeconomic forces, suffered from benign (and not-so-benign) neglect.
Annually Bexar Street was described as “looking like a river” as homes were subject to flooding until the construction of the levee in 1993, sixty years after the completion of the original levees protecting downtown Dallas. While the levee prevented flooding, it loomed as an additional barrier. Neighborhood leadership has overcome these constraints to revitalize their community.
Listen to Jackie and Sherri Mixon, leaders of the Ideal community, describe the naming significance of these circles on the Buckeye Trail.
