The history of Wynnewood is inextricably connected with the development of suburban living in post-World War II America. Wynnewood is the southern equivalent of the famous Levittown, New York, a planned community (America’s first suburb) with which Wynnewood is exactly concurrent. However, the parallels do not end there. Just as Levittown was named after Levitt and Sons, the company that planned and built the suburb, so Wynnewood carries the name of the Wynne family. The 820 acres that were to become Wynnewood were originally purchased in 1913 by the American Home Realty Company, but remained undeveloped until the 1940s; at that point the company was acquired by Toddie Lee Wynne Sr. and Benjamin Hick Majors. When Wynne's nephew Angus Gilchrist Wynne Jr., returned from the war, he was appointed president of American Home Realty. His task was to take advantage of the post-war boom, which was propitious for housing development. Angus Wynne (developer of Six Flags Over Texas) and his architect, Roscoe DeWitt, conceived of Wynnewood as "one-self-contained community," as the American Home Realty Company declared in a contemporary advertisement. Another contemporary ad referred to the "City of Wynnewood, U.S.A." Of course, the Wynnewood community did not grow organically over decades or even centuries, like traditional cities; it reflected the carefully thought-out blueprint of its creators. Wynnewood was to consist of 2,200 homes and 1,000 apartments, with a large shopping area at their center. It was built to house 10,000 people and is just directly south of “Old Oak Cliff”, south of the traditional shopping Main Street or “Downtown” on Jefferson Blvd. It was considered to be the country’s largest privately owned housing development. The homes cost between $6,000 and $20,000, ranging from modest floor plans in the original core of Wynnewood to upscale residences in Wynnewood North. The mix of apartments and homes in different price ranges ensured a certain socio-economic diversity; racial diversity, on the other hand, was not yet conceivable: the community was initially all-white. Unlike modern-day developers, who often fail to provide neighborhoods with the facilities necessary for everyday life, Wynne and his advisers planned a large shopping center at the heart of their community. Begun in the summer of 1947, by 1954 the Wynnewood Village had expanded to 150 shops on 53 acres with 6,400 parking spaces. There was a movie theater, a post office, the Wynnewood State Bank, department stores (including Dallas based Titche-Goettinger and Montgomery Ward) , grocery stores, drugstores, restaurants, furniture and jewelry stores, doctors' offices, and even a hotel. What made (and still makes) the Wynnewood Village unique is the fact that it is laid out like a "village": shops are not crammed into one huge air-conditioned complex, but are housed in blocks of one-story buildings surrounded by Live Oak Trees. #dallas #oakcliff #oakclifftx #fyp #dallastx - @data2147