The railroads created Deep Elm. The Houston and Texas Central (H&TC) Railroad arrived in Dallas in 1872, followed by the Texas and Pacific (T&P) Railroad in 1873. The crossing of the two lines is considered the birth of a community on the outer edge of downtown Dallas that people called Deep Elm. The name Deep Ellum derives from the dialects of the people who worked there. At its heart, Deep Ellum was a place where the cultures of the world converged — Blacks, Jews, Greeks, Italians, Mexicans, Czechs, and others, fleeing the oppression of their homelands, looking for a better life. Over the years Deep Ellum became a crossroads, a nexus, where just about anyone might interact and impact each other in relative freedom.