What do you think about the following claim? This is my attempt at a generalization about early settlers to the Dallas area. Is this true of just about everywhere in the Southwest? Or too broad a generalization? If I was a university professor, I might say, "Argue for or against" etc.
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Early settlers to the Dallas area tended to come by way of Arkansas and the Oklahoma territory rather than Louisiana. Southerly routes had to cross multiple wide rivers, bayous, creeks, and marshes, and there were no bridges over major streams. The first bridge over the Mississippi River was not built until 1855, and that was at Minneapolis, far to the north. St. Louis would not have a bridge until 1874. The northerly routes had fewer and smaller streams to ford or to cross by ferry boats. Even settlers from southern states like Tennessee and Kentucky came to northern Texas by way of Missouri and Arkansas. This had an important effect on the settlement of northern Texas and perhaps the continuing culture of Dallas: relatively few of the early settlers came directly from the deep South.