Since its earliest days, Oak Cliff, a rolling, tree-covered section of
Dallas, has generated outstanding personalities in all fields of
American society and business and continues to do so today. In a high
school history class, future US Speaker of the House Jim Wright caught
his political vision; two years later, future Olympic champion and LPGA
founder Babe Didrikson began her training at Lake Cliff Park. The
legendary Stevie Ray Vaughan, along with contemporaries Michael Martin
Murphy and Ray Wylie Hubbard, began his music career in Oak Cliff, while
sports legends like Jerry Rhome and Harvey Martin paid their dues on
local fields of play. Hollywood successes Belita Moreno and Stephen
Tobolowsky first trained in their high school drama classes, decades
after pioneer Oak Cliff girl Sarah Horton Cockrell became Dallas's first
millionaire. Although a presidential assassin once lived in the
community, two of America's largest mega-churches now call Oak Cliff
home, as did the Father of the Texas Sesquicentennial.