page_title: Central Expressway (Dallas)
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: Central Expressway (Dallas) / North Central Expressway / History
caption_attribution_description: English: Central Expressway near NorthPark Center, Dallas, TX
context_page_description: Central Expressway is a north–south highway in Dallas, Texas and surrounding areas. The best-known section is the North Central Expressway, a name for a freeway section of U.S. Highway 75 between downtown Dallas and McKinney, Texas. The southern terminus is at an intersection with "hidden" Interstate 345 and Woodall Rodgers Expressway. From south of Main Street and its crossing under the Interstate 45 overhead in downtown Dallas, Central Expressway became the South Central Expressway, renamed César Chávez Boulevard on April 9, 2010.
context_section_description: The Central project was first proposed by Dallas City Planner George E. Kessler in 1911, who suggested that the city buy the right of way of the Houston and Texas Central Railway (H&TC) to remove the railway tracks and construct a Central Boulevard (later renamed the Central Expressway project) in their place. The Central project became a real project in the 1920s (with first mention in The Dallas Morning News in December 1924), but resistance from the Southern Pacific railroad company proved to be a serious obstacle that delayed the project for decades. Southern Pacific opposed the use of their railroad's right of way to construct Central Expressway, and it was this opposition and lobbying of political forces that caused the significant delays in the construction to the early 1950s.
  Parts of North Central Expressway were opened in 1950. The route from Downtown to Mockingbird Lane was fully functional by the end of 1952, and the whole route to Campbell Road in Richardson was opened for traffic in August 1956. By the time Central Expressway opened for traffic, North Dallas and Richardson had already expanded beyond expectations, and the new highway was already hopelessly inadequate by the 1960s.  The Expressway did not reach the city of Anna and the northern Collin County line until late 1969 or early 1970.
caption: Central Expressway near NorthPark Center
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