Swiss Avenue is Dallas’s most significant street, known for its historic homes, close-knit neighborhood, and the city’s best Mother’s Day home tour. Its roots also reach back to Dallas’ earliest days.
According to Preservation Dallas, after the failure of the early La Reunion Colony in 1855, several settlers moved east of the Trinity River. Among them were Swiss businessmen Jacob Nussbaumer and Henry Boll, who settled on adjoining properties along White Rock Road in 1859, and renamed it Swiss Avenue in deference to their native country.
In 1905, brothers Collett and Robert S. Munger developed Munger Place, Dallas’s first deed-restricted neighborhood, with Swiss Avenue as its grand centerpiece, designed to attract wealthy residents.
There are approximately 200 homes here designed by the leading architects of the era in a variety of styles. In 1973, activists, led by Virginia Savage McAlester and Harryette Ehrhardt, ensured the neighborhood was designated as the first historic district in Dallas…