The Portal of Dallas was started by Bill Hartzer, an local Dallas, Texas area internet entrepreneur and internet visionary, back in 2000. First started as a portal for the Dallas, Texas and surrounding communities, the site was popular among Dallas-area residents.

Around 2003, the Portal of Dallas turned from an internet portal into a directory of business listings that highlighted local Dallas-area businesses and linked to their web sites. Soon thereafter, major search engines like Google and Yahoo! came up with their own local versions, including Google Local and Yahoo! Local. The local directory listings of businesses in the Dallas/Fort Worth area have been included into the Google and Yahoo! search engines, making it less necessary to include local directory listings in the Portal of Dallas.

In 2007, the Portal of Dallas was transformed into what you see today–a local news web site and blog that covers businesses based in the Dallas/Fort Worth metroplex as well as a site that talks about local issues, as well. The local business directory listings that the Portal of Dallas has always been known for are still available–and the site continues to include businesses as a results of a review “by a human”.