Rosser NewtonDallas · energy and Texas history

Civic

Civic work

Three Dallas organizations, each tied to the history he writes about

Black and white photograph of him listening at a gathering, another guest seen from behind

Rosser Newton’s civic work in Dallas runs through three organizations, each tied to the history he writes about. He treats them as subjects he knows well, and this page describes them in that spirit.

Dallas Historical Society

As a trustee of the Dallas Historical Society he is tied to an institution that keeps collections on Dallas and North Texas and has long worked from the Hall of State at Fair Park.1 The society’s history and holdings are in the reference entry on the Dallas Historical Society, and the city it documents is the subject of the essays on Dallas history.

Alamo Letter Society

The Alamo Letter Society counts him among its founders and co chairs. The society places bronze plaques reproducing Travis’s February 1836 appeal from the besieged Alamo in county courthouses around Texas, and each installation is dedicated locally, with more planned.2 The letter itself, its printing and its custody are covered in the entry on the Travis Victory or Death letter, and the society’s purpose and history in a reference entry of its own. The buildings the plaques go into are the subject of the essays on courthouses.

The society’s own site keeps the record of each county dedication.

Dallas Arboretum Foundation

The Dallas Arboretum Foundation, which he helped found, exists to support the public garden on the shores of White Rock Lake.3 How two private estates became a public garden is told in the entry on the Dallas Arboretum.

Why these three

All three organizations work with the same raw material as his research: the objects, documents and places that carry the history of Dallas and of Texas. The historical society keeps collections a researcher can consult; the letter society puts a primary document where the public will see it; the garden preserves two historic estates and their grounds. The essays on Dallas history draw on the first and third, and the essays on courthouses on the second.

Beyond the three

Dallas has drawn him into a range of civic, educational and cultural organizations as well. The three above are the ones closest to the writing on this site, and the only ones this site describes. Each has its own site, linked in the notes below, for anyone who wants their programs and calendars.

References

  1. Dallas Historical Society, dallashistory.org. ↩

  2. Alamo Letter Society, alamoletter.com. ↩

  3. Dallas Arboretum and Botanical Garden, dallasarboretum.org. ↩