Margaret Hunt Hill Bridge could follow Pegasus, Reunion Tower as Dallas icon

By Melissa Repko

Move over, Reunion Tower. You’ve got competition.

The Margaret Hunt Hill Bridge is the latest architectural addition to Dallas’ skyline, and it stands a chance of becoming the city’s most prominent landmark.

The Dallas visitors’ guide, produced by the Dallas Convention & Visitors Bureau, already touts the bridge on its cover. Vendors will hawk thousands of T-shirts, tote bags and magnets, produced by the Trinity Trust, at the bridge’s celebration this weekend.

“We’ve had other landmarks in the past — Reunion Tower and the flying red horse, Pegasus,” said Al Hunt Jr., Margaret’s son and a member of the family that donated $12 million to the project.

“Those will always be important to Dallas, but we hope that the Calatrava bridge will be the symbol of the future.”

The bridge may have to vie for a place among the city’s other historic symbols.

Darwin Payne, Dallas historian and professor emeritus at Southern Methodist University, traces the city’s iconography to the flying red horse stationed on top of the 29-story Magnolia Building.

The Magnolia Petroleum Co., the predecessor of Mobil Oil, erected two revolving 30-by-50-foot images of a red-winged horse to impress oil executives when Dallas hosted the American Petroleum Institute’s annual convention in 1934....