Most people picture the twenties as the decade of bootleggers, speakeasies, and flappers—and those were certainly as colorful in Dallas County as in the rest of the nation. This was also a wealthy decade. Recently rural communities developed growing business districts, while downtown Dallas looked upward and saw skyscrapers. The tallest building west of the Mississippi River was the 29 –story Dallas headquarters of the Magnolia Oil Company. The population across the county not only increased, it became less rural. By 1930, 83 per cent of residents lived in a city or town. Property values in Dallas made it the wealthiest city in the state, with more telephones than any city in the South. In 1925, 31 per cent of the world’s cotton was grown within 100 miles of Dallas, and all of it passed through the city, leaving cash in the hands of locals. Amid the fun, music and hopes for prosperity, the realities of daily life still included poverty, struggles for equality, and concerns about crime and vice.

World War II brought Dallas County residents back to the fears and sacrifices of the first world war, but at a larger scale and for a longer time. The war forever changed the lives of people here and across the nation.