3 January 22 - 28, 2026 dallasobserver.com DALLAS OBSERVER Classified | MusiC | dish | Culture | unfair Park | Contents Out of Sight, Out of Mind As historical buildings are torn down and code violations mount, the residents of Kleberg hope City Hall remembers that they’re part of Dallas. BY EMMA RUBY B ill Freeman would like to know how old the post oak tree that stood two doors down from him was before it was chopped down. Was it 100, 200 years old? As old as our country, celebrating 250 years, or even older? Even chopped to pieces, the tree is the type of large that can only be achieved with time. The stump, yanked out of the ground and resting on a bed of gnarled roots, reaches the top of a man’s ribcage. Nearby, the post oak’s discarded trunk is not much shorter. Freeman would have liked to stop the tree from being felled. He’d like to stop a lot of what he sees as developers coming into his neighborhood, Kleberg, and doing what they want regardless of the rules. Kleberg sits tucked away from Dallas, so far south that the downtown skyline has dis- appeared in your rearview mirror by the time you arrive. If you look past the potholes and the orange traffic cones that denote stalled project after stalled project, you’ll find the area’s rural charm: cows grazing, dogs running along fences with tongues loll- ing and the sun rising over dewy fields. People move here to escape from the city, said David Carranza, president of the Kle- berg Neighborhood Association. But in mak- ing that escape, neighbors feel like the city has forgotten about Kleberg. Carranza and other neighborhood advo- cates, like Freeman, have been asking the city to invest more in Kleberg for years, with varying levels of success. There are promises everywhere: a creek bed crossed by sewage lines that neighbors have been told will be converted into a park by the end of 2027; a trail system for which the city has the land but has yet to build; and traffic control plans that are repeatedly pushed back year after year. Now, the planned demolition of a home that neighbors believe holds historical sig- nificance has raised new questions about the city’s care for the area and the efficacy of city departments that handle issues like permit- ting and preservation. It has also inspired yet another promise: to allocate resources for evaluating which buildings in Kleberg require historical protection, and to provide better education for residents on how to ini- tiate this process. “History is important. Things keep on coming back around, and if we don’t learn from our history and learn from our mis- takes, what’s the point?” Carranza said. “We’ve got to start figuring out what in Dis- trict 8 we need to save.” The Most Notable Home in Kleberg F rustration in Kleberg came to a head at the end of December, when Free- man, who moved to the area in the early ’70s. He has spent nearly two decades advocating for the neighborhood on the Dal- las County Trail and Preserve Program Board and caught wind of plans to tear down the 100-year-old home that sits at the end of his street. Construction machinery had been moved onto the large property, which marks the start of a rural residential neighborhood and overlooks a commercial area on Belt Line Road in the other direction. A large home, wrapped in stonework and windows framed in tan trim, rests on the corner of the prop- erty. Trees and tall prairie grass fill the rest of the area. City records indicate that the home was built between 1925 and 1927 for Dr. J. W. Ridgell. An old newspaper clipping that has been passed around Kleberg so many times it’s difficult to know when the article was written or for which publication describes Ridgell as bringing “many of the residents [of Kleberg] into this world and [attending] to their needs for years by traveling for miles in his horse and buggy to treat patients.” “If you should happen to drive through this small community, you can’t help but no- tice the large two-story yellow house that sits on the southeast corner of Kleberg and Belt Line roads,” the article says, with two large images of the home printed in the cen- ter of the page. “I know there are a great many stories to be told by the descendants of these pioneers who settled in and | UNFAIR PARK | Mike Brooks >> p4 Bill Freeman (left) and David Carranza are Kleburg neighborhood advocates attempting to save local history.
