Bilbo Jitney Line, Headquarters Site
Dallas, Dallas County, Texas
Marker Inscription
In 1915, when public transportation was non-existent in the western part of Dallas, Victor Clifford Bilbo (1894 - 1968) began operating a jitney (small bus) line from downtown to Cement City, Gates, Sowers, Irving, and other outlying communities. Paying five cents per ride, passengers often sat three deep and hung on running boards of Bilbo's Model T Ford touring cars. He often took people to hospitals and funerals free of charge. In August 1927, because of new state franchise laws, the Bilbo jitneys were replaced by buses. 1974, 1989
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
Before Dallas had public transit on its west side, Victor Bilbo filled the gap with a fleet of Model T Fords. Beginning in 1915, his jitney line carried nickel-a-ride passengers — packed three deep, some clinging to the running boards — from downtown out to Cement City, Irving, and other fringe communities, and he often ferried people to hospitals and funerals free of charge. New state franchise laws finally replaced his jitneys with buses in 1927.
Why it matters
The jitney era captures a scrappy, improvised chapter of American urban mobility, when private drivers stitched together the transit networks that cities had not yet built.
Own a business near here? Add it to the map.
Related people
- · Victor Clifford Bilbo
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Site of Sanger Brothers Department Store
Dallas, TX
The Sanger Brothers retail empire traces to 1857, when German immigrant Isaac Sanger opened a small dry-goods store in McKinney and was later joined by his brothers Lehman, Philip, Alex, and Sam. The first store under the Sanger Bros. name opened in Bryan in 1867, and the family shrewdly planted new stores along the advancing railroad, reaching Dallas in 1872. Nationally known for innovative marketing and merchandising, the firm helped drive the city's commercial rise.
City of Dallas
Dallas, TX
Dallas began in 1841 as a single cabin on the Trinity River, where pioneer John Neely Bryan hoped river navigation would build a city. Instead it was the railroads — the Houston and Texas Central in 1872 and the Texas and Pacific the next year — that turned the young county seat into a commercial powerhouse. By 1890 Dallas was the state's most populous city, its fortunes riding on cotton, wheat, banking, and later East Texas oil, and in 1936 it hosted the Texas Centennial Exposition.
Maple Avenue
Dallas, TX
Maple Avenue rose as one of twelve subdivisions of the North Dallas Improvement Company after a streetcar line reached the area in 1884, opening it to the city's growing elite. Leading citizens—newspaper managers, a railroad land agent, a machinery magnate, and two Dallas mayors—lined the street with elegant Victorian mansions. The home on this site, built in 1907 by realtor John P. Murphy, stayed in his family for nearly fifty years.
Junction of the Texas & Pacific and Houston & Texas Central Railroads
Dallas, TX
Dallas cemented its place as North Texas's commercial hub when the Texas & Pacific and Houston & Texas Central lines crossed here in 1873. City and county leaders had paid the H&TC $5,000 to bend its route toward town, then engineered a legislative rider forcing the T&P to cross near Browder's Springs — conveniently close to the courthouse — before sweetening the deal with bonds and right-of-way along what became Pacific Avenue. The result was one of Texas's first rail crossroads.