- Title: Dallas-Fort Worth Turnpike
- Author: Texas Turnpike Authority
- Date: 1966
- Condition: Creasing and wear along original folds, with small seperations at fold intersections and minor edge wear. All else fine.
- Inches: 16 1/4 x 10 1/4 [Image]
- Centimeters: 41.27 x 26.03 [Image]
- Product ID: 308773
A colorful double-sided folding road map promoting the Dallas–Fort Worth Turnpike. Combining detailed city plans, regional highway mapping, and persuasive advertising, the brochure captures the expanding metropolitan landscape of North Texas and the appeal of fast, uninterrupted automobile travel.
A full-sheet metropolitan highway map traces the turnpike between Fort Worth and Dallas through Arlington and Grand Prairie, marking interchanges, connecting highways, incorporated areas, and nearby lakes. Notable landmarks include Six Flags, Greater Southwest Airport, and Love Field. A comparative table promotes the turnpike route across the metropolitan area as shorter and less interrupted than competing northern and southern routes: 46.2 miles and seven traffic lights, versus 56.1 miles and 55 lights to the north and 50 miles and 65 lights to the south. Separate advertising describes the turnpike itself as “30 miles—30 minutes,” with no intersections or traffic lights, encapsulating the brochure’s promise of modern, efficient motoring.
Verso
A striking red cover panel displays the turnpike’s stylized Texas-and-roadway emblem and the slogan “GO TURNPIKE,” promising the “shortest, fastest, easiest route” through the Dallas–Fort Worth area. Two substantial street maps illustrate suggested routes through Fort Worth and Dallas, highlighting the turnpike and its approaches in red against finely drawn blue streets, railways, and waterways. Identified destinations include downtown Dallas, Memorial Auditorium, Fair Park, and the Cotton Bowl. A detailed toll schedule, illustrated with vehicle silhouettes, lists fares for six vehicle classifications.
Background on Creator
The Texas Turnpike Authority was established by the Texas Legislature in 1953 as an independent state agency authorized to construct and operate toll roads and bridges. Its first major undertaking was the Dallas–Fort Worth Turnpike, a thirty-mile controlled-access highway opened in 1957 to provide a faster connection between the two cities. Financed through revenue bonds repaid from toll collections, the project exemplified a new approach to meeting the transportation demands of rapidly growing North Texas. The authority subsequently developed the Dallas North Tollway, which opened in 1968. In 1997, the original agency was abolished, with its North Texas assets and responsibilities transferred to the newly created North Texas Tollway Authority and statewide turnpike functions assigned to the Texas Department of Transportation.