Born into slavery, Dallas pioneer and his land holdings were lost to history — until now

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Each accounting of Dallas’ past tells the same story: Ever since John Neely Bryan planted his cabin on the east bank of the Trinity in 1841, land ownership has opened the door to power and prestige.

That’s why it’s so unjust that missing from those history books is the name of Anderson Bonner — a slightly built man who towered over the several thousand acres he amassed in what is today North Dallas.

His achievement is all the more consequential given that Bonner was born into slavery and, upon his 1865 emancipation in Texas, was left homeless and deprived of being taught even how to sign his name.

More than a century after the death of this generous pioneer and shrewd businessman who acquired considerable wealth and community standing, our city is about to make right Bonner’s omission from the story of Dallas.

The dedication Sept. 10 of a public sculpture by artist Andrew F. Scott and the unveiling of a state historical marker will take place where Bonner’s White Rock Creek homestead once stood.

The 44 acres just north of Forest Lane and west of North Central Expressway became a city park bearing Bonner’s name in 1976 — but with no explanation of why.

“Anderson Bonner was an anomaly for his time, doing something that seems miraculous, really impossible — to acquire maybe close to 3,000 acres of land,” researcher George Keaton said. “Yet his accomplishments have been ignored.”

Keaton is the founder and director of Remembering Black Dallas Inc., which spearheaded this recognition and is devoted to doing the same for all the other forgotten stories in our history.

The first record of Anderson Bonner shows up on the 1849 “inventory of property” of a slaveholder in Limestone County, Ala. After the man’s death, records show his wife moved the household, including Bonner, to Dallas.

By 1870, five years after his emancipation, Bonner had registered to vote and acquired his first 25 acres. Soon he began to lease houses and their surrounding land to sharecroppers who grew cotton, corn and fruits and he used those earnings to buy more property.

By plowing all his capital back into land purchases, Bonner became perhaps the largest landowner north of downtown by the early 1900s.

He and his wife, Ann Eliza, had 10 children whom they raised in the home alongside White Rock Creek. Ann Eliza died in 1903 when an oil lamp explosion burned down their home.

Bonner built a new home just to the east on land that his descendants eventually would sell to become the home of Medical City Dallas.

After Bonner’s passing in 1920, he was buried in the historic White Rock Colored Union Cemetery, which is now White Rock Garden of Memories Cemetery.

Fifty or so members of the family still live in North Texas, including Nepha Bonner Love, one of Bonner’s great-granddaughters. Known as “Aunt Faye” to most of the family, she is Bonner’s oldest surviving relative.

I got the chance Tuesday to sit with Aunt Faye, along with Keaton and Bonner’s great-great-grandson Antonia Suber, at the spot where the family patriarch will soon be honored.

Aunt Faye, who will unveil the historic marker, still lives off Forest Lane on property that’s been in her family for generations.

She was raised by her grandparents, who passed along stories about Anderson Bonner’s skills as a farmer and businessman. She also recalls anecdotes about his Christian devotion and love for family reunions along White Rock Creek.

“Most of all, he was a person who loved his family and always wanted them to do good,” she told me. “He believed in his family and he believed in his community.”

Bonner, who was denied even the most basic schooling, was adamant that all younger family members get an education. The first campus for Black students in North Dallas, during segregation days, was the Anderson Bonner School.

He was also a generous man and allowed everyone access to his prime land along the creek to hunt, fish and swim. Even into the 1950s, the original homestead was the site of the community’s annual Juneteenth celebrations.

Suber credits Aunt Faye with instilling in him a love for the family’s history through her vivid storytelling. He lives in nearby Hamilton Park and is leading restoration efforts at the cemetery where Bonner and many other family members are buried.

Suber, who tells Anderson Bonner’s story every chance he gets, said none of the family was sure a tribute to the landowner would ever come.

“To be able to sit here on his original land and look out at what’s to be here is a long-awaited dream come true,” he said.

Among the family photos Suber has collected is one that shows family members farming alongside the airplane hanger that would eventually become the Olla Podrida shopping complex on Coit Road.

Bonner land once stretched east from White Rock Creek across what is now Central Expressway to Hamilton Park.

In 1987, Eunice Bonner Turner, one of Bonner’s granddaughters who has since passed away, told Dallas Morning News columnist Norma Adams Wade that bad business deals and dishonest buyers cost Bonner and his grown children dearly.

Turner and other relatives sold much of what remained in the 1970s, paving the way for the hospital and other commercial development in the area.

Keaton persevered for years on behalf of the Bonner family, and it was impossible to measure whose smile was the biggest as we looked at the newly installed sculpture. I can tell you that Aunt Faye’s eyes sparkled even more brightly than her fancy bejeweled cap.

The colorful steel sculpture honoring Bonner is a sankofa bird, derived from a western Africa language in what is now Ghana.

Artist Scott told me that the word and the crane–like form both signify “go back and fetch it.”

“In the Ashanti culture in Ghana, it states that you have to have an understanding of your past to be prepared to step into your future,” he said.

Scott, whom the city’s Office of Arts and Culture commissioned to create the piece, is an associate professor of art and technology at the University of Texas at Dallas.

He knew the sculpture must hit the mark in two ways: It must feel like it belongs in the space and, more importantly, it must draw people into the story of Anderson Bonner.

On one side is a bronze inlay of Anderson Bonner’s face, a visage based on century-old photography but sculpted digitally with state-of-the-art technology. On the other are details of the Bonner story, written in first person and created by great-grandson Harold Bonner.

This is Scott’s first public art project for the city he now calls home and he’s honored that it be in remembrance to such a significant man.

“That I can be the vessel to realize this idea, which came from the community and the Bonner family, that was always in my mind as I worked and completed this project,” Scott said.

Whether attending the formal ceremony or visiting on your own, I hope Dallas residents will visit this lovely spot, one that so many of us have driven past for years with no knowledge of its significance.

Most of all, a big thank you to Remembering Black Dallas for documenting these parts of our city’s history that would otherwise be forever disregarded and forgotten.