Flashback : Dallas

A Miscellany: History, Ads, Pop Culture
September 17, 2026

Sofia & Woody

Sofia and Woody, June 1962

by Paula Bosse

Earlier this summer, I received an email from a man named Elwood Hain, who wrote to tell me that he had read a post I wrote a few years ago about a peaceful lunch-counter sit-in by SMU students protesting a University Park drug store that refused to serve non-white customers. Elwood (“Woody”) was one of the protesters. He wrote me a series of emails recalling the early days of his involvement in civil rights work in Dallas. The memories included the recollection of the first time he met Sofia, a sociology student at TWU, who would become his wife. I asked Woody if he would put his memories into a post. He graciously agreed, and I am happy to share his memories here.

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SMU Sit-ins Revisited

by Elwood (Woody) Hain

My brother recently sent me a link to a 2022 article in Flashback Dallas, “When SMU Theology Students Were Sprayed with Insecticide at a University Park Lunch-Counter Sit-In – 1961.”  I especially enjoyed it as I was one of the protesters. I believe most of us were members of campus religious organizations, though theology students seemed to be in the lead. I was the only law student there. My brother was the only engineering student. We belonged to the Presbyterian student group. You can see our backs in the picture of the students picketing in front of the drug store. I am the last person in the line walking away from the photographer. The insecticide Mr. Bright had sprayed on us ruined the tan faux suede jacket I was wearing.

Woody, with his back to the camera

I heard about the plan for the sit-in at the drugstore only a day or two before the event. Aware that “sit-inners” were often arrested, I told two of my law professors I planned to participate and might miss some classes if arrested. One acknowledged the information, looked awkward, and turned away. The other, Alan Bromberg, an expert in corporate law, gave me his card and told me to call him if I needed to be bailed out. Fortunately, I did not need to call him. After the sit-in, I took some ribbing from law school friends, but it was in good fun. After sharing classes and brown bag lunches for two and a half years, they all knew my views and were not surprised. I had even turned down an opportunity to be managing editor of SMU’s law journal so I could spend the summer of 1960 with Operation Crossroads Africa, doing pick-and-shovel work and building relationships with local students in Guinea, West Africa.

I had returned from Africa in time to plunge into John Kennedy’s presidential campaign. I organized a small group of SMU students to help get out the vote in West Dallas. The area was poor. It had a large Mexican American population, most of whom were Catholic and Democratic, the ideal demographic for Kennedy. Voter turnout was usually light, leaving lots of room for improvement. When Kennedy carried Texas, we claimed it was in part because we helped keep the loss in Dallas County down to two to one. Maybe having Senator Lyndon Johnson on the ticket helped too.

The sit-ins started two months after the election. In the interim there were final exams and then the Christmas break. The sit-in at Bright’s drugstore was the first but not the last of the SMU student sit-ins. We had a well-organized sit-in at a quick-service hamburger restaurant on the strip and stand-ins at the ticket booths of at least two movie theaters, among other places. One of the student leaders, George Edwards, was the son of the Detroit police commissioner, a lawyer whose main goal when appointed was to stop the beating of prisoners on the way to jail. He asked his father how the students could make their point without being beaten or arrested. The answer was to (1) tell the local police before we acted so they could be present and (2) obey when the police told us to leave. We took the advice and were glad of it when a short-order cook at the hamburger place started waving a butcher knife under the throats of students at the counter. A policeman outside the door stepped inside. He told the cook to back off and the students to leave. Everyone obeyed. Students returned at lunchtime the next day. The cook stayed in the kitchen. I was not present, but the story spread quickly.

In addition to physically participating in sit-ins, I made one unique contribution to the effort – and arguably to Texas law. Some of the students reasonably feared they would be arrested for trespassing. As the only law student involved, I did some fast research on the subject soon after the first sit-in. I was surprised to find that there was no state trespass law. Checking municipal ordinances was harder, but I also established that neither University Park nor Dallas had a trespass ordinance. The students were heartened by the news. The next legislature passed Texas’ first trespass statute.

The sit-ins had unexpected and very happy consequences for me. The chaplain of the Methodist student organization at Texas Woman’s University in Denton was also a student at SMU’s Perkins School of Theology. He wanted a speaker from the protest group to talk to the Methodist students at TWU about the sit-ins and the civil rights movement. He contacted another theology student and, through a route I never knew, his request came to me. I suspect it was because someone thought I knew something about law.

I agreed to go, and in March 1960 I drove the 45 miles to Denton with three other guys I had not seen at the sit-ins. I think two were theology students. All three were clear that meeting girls was at least one of the reasons they were going. I thought they were nuts, but the girls at TWU seemed to have the same idea. Forty girls turned up at a meeting that usually had only ten.  (I know “girls” is not politically correct, but it was the standard terminology of the day.)

The chair of the group, a slender Mexican American girl in sensible shoes, a shapeless bulky sweater and an ankle-length skirt who had come straight from a swim class, ran a good meeting. After a few preliminaries, she discussed a task the group had undertaken to help the children of migrant farm workers. She reminded them that the toiletry kits they were making were probably going to hold the only personal items the children would own. She mentioned that she had seen how treasured such kits were during her two summers working in the Midwest with the Migrant Ministry of the United Churches of Christ. She checked on the progress of students who had agreed to work on the project. Then she asked the chaplain to introduce the guests, all of whom were impressed with her commitment to her ministry and her pleasant but businesslike manner.

I was the primary guest speaker. I started with a brief history of slavery, segregation and the civil rights movement. Then I explained the logic of sit-ins, both as an appeal to people’s better angels and as an effort to counteract the economic pressures of segregationists. I also explained why peaceful protest was a Christian response to a cruel system. One of the theology students said a few words. After a few questions about sit-ins, the chair reminded the attendees of the next meeting and the project they were working on. As people began to mill about, she disappeared. She, at any rate, was not there to meet men.

All four visitors wanted to chat with her. As we were about to give up, she came downstairs from talking with the chaplain’s wife and two small children. She was their babysitter and housekeeper in addition to having two other jobs. The visitors clustered around her. We asked her to help us find a hamburger joint – in a small town with two big universities! We didn’t fool her for a minute. She agreed but only if another girl went too. No problem! After a pleasant meal, during which she filched two of my French fries, we took the girls to their dorm. I was completely charmed.

The next day I called the chaplain for her phone number. Laughing, he gave it to me and confirmed that her name was Sofia. She turned me down the first two tries, convincingly pleading other engagements, but gave me enough encouragement that I called again. She agreed to a date, sounding pleased but cautious. While I waited for Sofia in the waiting room of her dorm the following Friday, surrounded by other guys waiting for dates, the room suddenly hushed as twenty guys caught their breath. I turned and saw a stunning brunette in a form-fitting black wool dress at the top of a set of low steps. It took me a moment to realize that she was my date, the sweet girl who was busy caring for other people and preparing to be a missionary. We had a delightful evening.

Things moved fast after that. Long-distance phone calls were expensive, so we used them primarily to coordinate dates. I drove to Denton for our dates two or three times a weekend. TWU was about 45 miles from Dallas. Freeways had not yet been built. When we went to events in Dallas I made two round trips a day.  It was an easy trip when Sofia was in the car. We talked about everything in the world and sang as many songs as we knew. Most were hymns. Sofia was my date to the annual law school awards banquet, where she met my parents, who had driven from Baton Rouge for the occasion. She also met my band of law school friends who sat around us with their wives and dates. She said little but observed everything and, as we drove back to Denton, discussed each of my friends. I was convinced she had more insight into them after an evening than I did after three years.

We both had jobs in Dallas that summer and saw each other daily. I worked for a law firm. Sofia was a social worker. I was supposed to study for the bar exam but couldn’t find time. I passed the bar anyway. We went to church together on Sundays, usually at the Spanish-speaking Presbyterian church in West Dallas where I had taught Sunday School and organized a Boy Scout troop my first year of law school. We spent one magical day at the Dallas Zoo.

Civil rights work was part of our summer. We spent a good many evenings walking door to door in a Black neighborhood of small, neat houses near Love Field. I had volunteered to help the NAACP find incoming first graders to desegregate the public schools. An openly segregationist federal judge had been forced to order the Dallas schools to desegregate but did so with a long list of conditions. Only one grade would be desegregated each year, starting with the first grade. Only Black children would be reassigned. To be reassigned to a white school, a child would have to live closer to the white school than to a Black one (in one of the most residentially segregated cities in America), have no older siblings in elementary school, have the approval of the principals of both the sending and the receiving school, and be declared emotionally sound by a psychologist. There were twenty-eight criteria in all. The school district was not required to help identify or find children who met the criteria. That burden was entirely on the plaintiffs.

Sofia and I caused a lot of excitement among the neighborhood kids. It was not every day they saw a beautiful Chicana and a skinny white guy, both dressed for office work, walking through the neighborhood during prime play hours. The adults who answered the doors were kind and helpful, even before we stated our business. Sofia’s grace and charm put everyone at ease. In the end, we found a third of the twenty-one children who were reassigned to white schools that fall.

We were formally engaged at the end of the summer. I spent the next nine months working on a doctorate in political science at Harvard while Sofia worked in Dallas as a social worker to earn enough money for her last semester of college. After a joyful Christmas together, we lived on letters and short phone calls till late May. The first week of June we were married by the chaplain who had given me Sofia’s phone number. We celebrated our sixty-fourth anniversary in early June this year.

Sofia died in her sleep in mid-July.

Elwood (Woody) Hain
B.A. 1958, LL.B. 1961, Southern Methodist University

Elwood Hain, Jr. (a/k/a Woody Hain) is a retired law professor who lives in Altadena, California. He earned a B.A. and an LL.B. from SMU and an LL.M. from Harvard Law School. For a dozen years, while primarily a professor and dean, he worked with school desegregation litigation as a scholar, a litigator, a peacekeeper, and an advisor to school boards and judges. He served thirty years in the Air Force reserve as a judge advocate, retiring as a colonel. For sixty-four years he had the joy of being married to Sofia Loera Hain, who died in July 2026.

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I send my deepest condolences to Sofia’s family and friends, and to Woody, whose further memories about his life with Sofia that he has shared with me will stay with me for a long time. –Paula

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Sources & Notes

Black-and-white photo of the SMU student protest is from the Dallas History & Archives, Dallas Public Library.

All other photos are from the family collection of Mr. Hain.

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Copyright © 2026 Paula Bosse. All Rights Reserved.

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July 7, 2026

City of Dallas Permit Books

Permits issued, August 1923

by Paula Bosse

NOTE: The Genealogy & History department and the Dallas History & Archives department of the Dallas Public Library need your help with these permit books! Scroll down to the bottom for more information.

There were lots of research resources I was unfamiliar with until I started working in the Dallas History Archives at the downtown library. Such as… permit books (AKA City of Dallas Building Permit Books/AKA Building Inspector Record Books/AKA Building Permit Inspectors’ Log Books). These books are comically large and very heavy. They have to be rolled out on a cart to patrons asking for them, and in order to inspect them, the books have to be set in a foam “cradle” so that they aren’t damaged when laid flat. They look like this (photos above and below):

The books span the years 1905 to the early 1970s. They are city government ledgers, and all the information in them is written by hand.

So what are they? They are a record of permits issued to individuals or businesses whenever a building is constructed or expanded or has major repairs done to it. Building an addition to your house? Repairing a roof after a hailstorm? Installing an elevator in your office building? You need a permit, and this is the low-tech repository of that information.

These books contain the following information: the date the permit was issued, the permit number, the owner’s name, the type of construction being done, the lot number, the block number, the address (remember, many of Dallas’ addresses changed in 1911 — and many street names have changed over the years — so you need to know the pre-1911 address of the building and the contemporary street name before you dive into your research with these records), whether the construction was brick or frame or an out-building, and the cost of the alterations, additions, or repairs. Some years also include the contractor’s name.

People come in to view these mammoth tomes almost daily. I am continually shocked by how popular these things are. The main problem is that these books are (for the most part) not digitized and not indexed — records are in order only by the date the permit was issued, not alphabetically, not by owner, not by street. Looking for information about when your home was built or when that weird-looking garage was added? Well, I’ve got good news and bad news for the stout-hearted Dallasites who make their way up to the 7th floor of the library, where these books can be found. The good news: we almost certainly have that information. Bad news? Unless you know the exact year of construction, chances are that you’re going to be looking through these giant books line by line and page by page for HOURS. …Or DAYS. I have witnessed people finding the house they’re looking for and almost shrieking with disbelief and joy that they actually found it — so it can be done. But mostly, people get through a couple of volumes and, after a few hours of tedium, give up.

But there’s light at the end of the tunnel! These books are being scanned and digitized by the library and transcribed by volunteers, but it is a very labor-intensive process, and it takes a long time. At the moment, there are only three volumes available to access on the Dallas Public Library website (no library card is needed), but only the first one has been transcribed:

As more are scanned and transcribed, they will show up on the Permit Books’ main page on the DPL website, here.

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I’m still trying to master the search functions, and it just takes a lot of playing around with it. The most helpful tip I can give you is how to make the page large enough to read — to really zoom in. Here’s how you do it:

Below is a screenshot of a page from a 1905 permit book (see the DPL page here). I’ve circled a Gaston Avenue house I wrote about a couple of years ago (here) — it was owned by Dr. C. M. Rosser, one of the city’s most prominent physicians. The original address of the house was 432 Gaston, at Hill (after the address-change in 1911, it became 4002 Gaston). TO ZOOM IN: click the icon at the left of the page that I have a blue arrow pointing to (when you hover over the icon, it says “Zoom to 100%”).

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Does the library need help with transcription? Yes! If you can read cursive (and, yes, there’s at least one entire generation of young people who mostly can’t read cursive…), you can help! And you can do it from the comfort of your own home. It helps if you’re familiar with Dallas street names, Dallas family names, and Dallas businesses, because that 120-year-old handwriting can be a little difficult to read sometimes.

Here are a couple of samples from March 29-31, 1905 of what you might be up against. The first one shows the names of owners and the type of construction they’ve received a permit for (click pictures to see larger images):

And a few street names from the same period:

So how do you offer your volunteer services to help transcribe these books that are in surprisingly high demand? We have two upcoming orientations next week for prospective volunteers. These will be held on the Genealogy & History floor (8th floor) of the downtown library, but, after these short orientation sessions, all work is remote.

Orientation dates are below. You need to register first — register here:

  • July 14, 2026 — Tuesday night, 6:30 PM – 7:30 PM (8th floor)
  • July 18, 2026 — Saturday afternoon, 2:00 PM – 3:00 PM (8th floor)

Spaces are limited, but this is an ongoing project, and if you see there are no spaces left, please call the Genealogy floor to see if you can have your name added to the list for the next orientation. Contact them by email (genealogy@dallas.gov) or by phone (214-670-1433).

Permit books are not the only historical records the library needs help transcribing. Ask about other records at the orientation.

Help Dallasites learn more about the history of their city by making resources like this more accessible!

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Sources & Notes

Screenshots from the Dallas Public Library digital collections website.

Photos by Paula Bosse.

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Copyright © 2026 Paula Bosse. All Rights Reserved.

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June 11, 2026

From the Vault: Soccer Has Been Around a Long Time in Dallas!

by Paula Bosse

Hey, Dallas: World Cup action has arrived in DFW! Seems appropriate that I rerun a post I wrote 12 years ago (where does the time go?). Read about the history of soccer in Dallas, which began 6 decades before the arrival of the Dallas Tornado in 1968. Check out “The Dallas Athletics, Dallas’ First Soccer Team — 1908.”

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Sources & Notes

Cartoon by John Knott, published in The Dallas Morning News on Dec. 27, 1908.

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Copyright © 2026 Paula Bosse. All Rights Reserved.

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June 9, 2026

Old Red: Once Under Threat of Demolition

Old Red, 2026 (photo by Paula Bosse)

by Paula Bosse

By 1961, the exterior of the Dallas County Courthouse (affectionately known as “Old Red”) had been slowly eroding for years. It was not uncommon for passers-by to have to dodge bits of the sandstone building raining down on them. And inside, county workers complained of severely cramped conditions in a building that had become overcrowded. The plumbing wasn’t great, and the lack of air conditioning made summertime intolerable. The courthouse was built in 1892 and was almost 70 years old.

County commissioners agreed that a new, modern courthouse was needed, and plans were drawn up to submit to the public. The $18,500,000 “Courthouse Building Program” was enthusiastically approved by voters in a September 1961 bond election. This vision included:

  • a new courts building and jail (to be erected on Commerce Street opposite the old red courthouse) which would “give space, dignity and stability to our county services”
  • landscaped plazas which would “conceal useful and urgently needed underground parking areas”
  • seven decentralized, permanent suburban sub-courthouses which the county would own and not have to rent

The new Dallas County Courthouse (which was renamed in 1992 to honor former City Councilman George Allen) began construction in the spring of 1963, and it was finished by the end of 1965. (Plans had changed somewhat by then, as in the intervening time there had been a presidential assassination, requiring the need to utilize one of the landscaped plaza blocks for a memorial.)

Throughout the construction of the new courthouse, heated discussions were going on about the fate of the old courthouse: what would happen to it? Commissioners refused to even discuss the question until the new courthouse was finished. One newspaper article said that this discussion hadn’t been brought up before the bond election for fear that voters wouldn’t approve it if they knew the old courthouse might be demolished when the new one opened (“County To Consider Prisoners as Yardworkers” by John Geddie, Dallas Morning News, Feb. 24, 1965). That didn’t bode well.

Because the sandstone exterior was eroding and the clock tower had been removed in 1919 for fear that it was structurally unsafe, people presumed that the building was in a dangerous state of disrepair and was falling apart. That it would cost more to repair than it was worth. But engineers inspected it at the time and reported that it “would stand for years and years.”

Ultimately, Old Red survived because the Texas Department of Public Welfare wanted to set up their Dallas office in the building: they told the commissioners that they would pay roughly half the renovation cost and that the county could retain ownership. This was sweet music to the commissioners, who decided against the demolition that most expected. Work began at the end of 1967 to update and modernize the old courthouse. It cost a million dollars.

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I was surprised to read how many people absolutely loathed Old Red and were actively urging the county to tear it down. I mean people hated it. I read so many newspaper articles in which people used words like “monstrosity,” “eyesore,” “ugly,” “gnarled,” “creaky,” “unsafe,” “unsightly,” and “obsolete.” Old Red?

There were also many who thought the building was beautiful and historically important and feared that it would be razed. But what could they do except write polite letters-to-the-editor saying that it would be a shame to tear down such an important landmark, and don’t you think it would make a nice museum? Dallasites had not yet become organized community activists for historic preservation, but this might have spurred people to become involved in saving buildings they felt deserved to be saved — the persistent effort to move Millermore to Old City Park and the fight to establish historic districts in Old East Dallas was just around the corner.

Thankfully, Old Red is still hanging in there, and since its incredible makeover in 2006/2007 — which included the welcome return of a clock tower — it looks spectacular. Granted, I didn’t see what the state of the building was in 1961 — and I definitely was not a fan of the clock tower being lopped off — but it’s hard for me to imagine it ever being considered a “monstrosity.” I think a lot of people just don’t like anything that’s old. Or anything that they feel is blocking a path to what they consider “progress.”

It’s also important to “Remember the Alamo!” as an example of how effective public sentiment and organized effort can be. I’m not suggesting that Old Red inhabits the same realm of historical significance as the Alamo, but knowing how difficult it was for a small group of women to save THE VERY SYMBOL OF TEXAS from falling victim to wealthy and powerful developers wanting to build a “luxury hotel” on the site (!)… it’s a miracle we have anything older than 20 years still standing in Dallas, a city known for its insistence on having everything as new and shiny as possible… until people get tired of it, label it “ugly” and “obsolete,” and abandon it or tear it down to build something else. City leaders and citizens must work together in finding solutions when faced with situations like the one Old Red found itself in, especially when it was taxpayers who paid for the building in the first place.

A “world-class city” is not just built with an eye to the future but also with an appreciation of its history. Old Red is 134 years old, and Dallas would not be the same without it. We’re lucky to still have it.

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Sources & Notes

Top photo by Paula Bosse, taken on Jan. 31, 2026 after leaving the 2026 Dallas Legacies Conference, held across the street at the Records Building.

The drawing is from the 1965 book The Key to Dallas by Lon Tinkle. The drawing, which was used in promotional material for the 1965 bond election, is credited to the Dallas Chamber of Commerce.

Below is a passage from a Dallas Morning News article profiling Patrick Horsbrugh, a Scottish architecture professor who was visiting Dallas. He had “near-ecstatic” praise for Old Red, which he described as being a prime example of “American Robust” architecture:

“Just look at those squat columns! Just look at the forces in that building!” He added, “Dallas is short on architectural inheritance, compared, say, with Boston or Philadelphia. It can’t afford to be as careless as older American cities about what is destroyed.” (“Architect Likes Old Courthouse” by Jim Stephenson, DMN, Oct. 2, 1963)

And a few days later, this paragraph appeared in a DMN editorial about Horsbrugh’s comments, which must have sounded unusual to the ears of people so accustomed to hearing the old courthouse described as an “architectural monstrosity”:

To the generation that built and paid for it out of fairly meager tax resources, it was “the stateliest courthouse in the South.” That is how it was described in the city directory of the day. They thought it a proper canopy for the seat of Justice in Dallas County — and who is to say today that they were a bunch of squares who couldn’t tell the Parthenon from a packing house? (“Dallas Guardians,” DMN, Oct. 7, 1963)

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Copyright © 2026 Paula Bosse. All Rights Reserved.

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June 2, 2026

DMN Archive News!

An early press of The Dallas Morning News (Belo Records, SMU)

by Paula Bosse

If you, like me, have been impatiently waiting for the return of the post-1984 archive of The Dallas Morning News (which disappeared without warning from the Dallas Public Library website several months ago and may still return one day…), well, your prayers have been answered.

For all I know, this “news” may be something that is weeks old, but I only found out about it today. The archive is available to News subscribers on the DMN website. There have been previous attempts by the DMN to do this, but it was never very successful and did not equal the efficiency of the search function that is found on the library website, offered by NewsBank.

But now… now, NewsBank is the engine running the archive on the Dallas Morning News website and, dare I say (as an employee of the Dallas Public Library), this new version of the NewsBank database is in many ways superior — it offers way, way more. In fact, as far as I can tell, it offers everything, from 1885 to today (meaning this very day).

I’m not a huge fan of the design of the DMN version and its somewhat clunky navigation — especially after using the library’s version almost daily for well over a decade — but the new version is certainly more comprehensive in its scope. Also — this is new — issues up to 2007 are fully scanned, meaning you see pages exactly as they were printed, with photos, ads, etc. Previously, scanned pages stopped after 1984 and were text only (it’s text-only from 2008 to today). That’s 22 years’ worth of new scanned editions.

I am beyond excited that this is available!

You do have to be a paid Morning News subscriber in order to access the NewsBank-driven archive via the DMN site. The NewsBank archive on the library website is free to anyone with a library card, but that does limit use to only those who live within the city of Dallas.

BUT, it appears that the entire Dallas Morning News archives are now available to anyone who is a subscriber, meaning I don’t think you have to live in Dallas to access them. This is going to be a huge boon to so many people who live beyond Dallas, beyond Texas, and, probably beyond the United States.

The library’s version is much, much faster to use and there are more extras like additional filters and download and email ability — I will probably use it more frequently. But the ability to now search the entirety of the DMN’s historical output is pretty thrilling.

…Now if they’d just get that Dallas Times Herald archive online like they’ve been promising for years, then I may never need to leave my computer!

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Here are a few examples of what the site looks like (to find the link to get there, click “Archives” — it’s all but hidden at the very bottom of the home page at dallasnews.com):

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A drop-down menu of limited filters:

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Search results for “Stanley Marcus”:

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Results seen in snippets. From then it’s very similar to the library’s NewsBank archive.

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This is not a paid advertisement! And this isn’t to say that the post-1984 DMN archive won’t return to the library. This is merely a public service announcement from one Dallas history fan to others!

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Sources & Notes

Top photo “Early Presses” (ca. 1915) is from the Belo Records, 1842-2007 collection, DeGolyer Library, SMU; more information on this photo is here.

Screenshots are from the Dallas Morning News website — site design and search management by NewsBank.

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Copyright © 2026 Paula Bosse. All Rights Reserved.

 

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May 25, 2026

Aldredge Book Store: New Location, Opening Day — 1969

My father, Dick Bosse

by Paula Bosse

Hello! Where have I been? My website host changed a bunch of stuff, and it has been too much of a hassle to sit down and figure out how to actually post anything without having a nervous breakdown. But I think I might have cracked it, and I have (partially) recovered from the breakdown. So… hello! It’s been a while.

Friday was my late father’s birthday, which I’ve tried to commemorate almost every year on this blog with a bookstore-related post in his honor. I didn’t manage to squeak in under the actual birthday deadline, but I’m racing to get it up during the holiday weekend. Better late than never!

The photo above was taken by Dallas Times Herald photographer Andy Hanson in August 1969 to coincide with the opening of the store’s new location at 2506 Cedar Springs, moving from 2800 McKinney Avenue, where the store was opened by the original owner, Sawnie Aldredge Jr., in 1947. Sawnie died in 1967, and my father, Dick Bosse, continued as the store’s manager and later became the owner.

The photo was taken in the room that was at the very back of a weirdly designed long, thin store comprised of several rooms that opened up off a long (lemon yellow!) hallway. This room was where the more expensive sets and fine bindings were shelved. To the right of the photo was a surprising feature: a sort of hidden courtyard and greenspace, sunken below street level, where customers could enter through a parking lot at the rear of the building.

When I started working in the Dallas History & Archives of the Dallas Public Library a couple of years ago, one of the first things I did was check the photo database to see if there were any photos of the store, and this popped up — one of several photos taken by Andy Hanson (an ABS habitué) in August 1969, none of which I’d ever seen. It was a nice way to start a new job.

There are definitely perks to the job, mainly endless researching opportunities and endless discovery opportunities. This weekend I checked the Vertical Files Collection (clipping files) and found the very article this photo appeared in, clipped decades ago by a fastidious librarian. (Click to read.)

Dallas Times Herald, Aug. 6, 1969

Also in the vertical files was an article about the imminent closing sale at the old McKinney Avenue store, featuring this photo (my father is on the left, his co-worker Charles Drum is on the right):

Dallas Morning News, June 21, 1969

The store discounted things DEEPLY in order to clear out the jam-packed Victorian house, until the final day with a deal that couldn’t be beat:

July 1969

To continue the journey through library sources, I then checked out the Times Herald on microfilm (used by customers and staff several times a day!) and found this super-cool, esoteric ad featured on the Sunday Book Page the day before the new store opened:

DTH, Aug. 3, 1960

I then checked the digitized Dallas Morning News archive (the first 100 years of the DMN are available to search and peruse for free with a Dallas Public Library card) and found a couple of other ads (different ads were used for different papers!).

DMN, Aug. 3, 1969

And, below, the “We even have air conditioning” postscript was, I’m sure, much appreciated by regular sweaty customers. (This ad was part of a larger ad which also featured antique dealers in the Cedar Springs-Fairmount neighborhood. I’m not sure who mistakenly put “Aldredge Book Shop” instead of “Aldredge Book Store,” but it wasn’t my father!)

DMN, Aug. 10, 1969

I also found a photo of the building (the “Cedar Springs-Fairmount Building”) in a newspaper ad from 1946:

DMN, Mar. 31, 1946

And, one last research resource the library has: its Serials & Periodicals Collection. This line drawing of the shopping strip comes from an ad in the Feb. 1947 issue of Dallas magazine (the Gittings photography studio was the tenant of the large space at the end):

“Dallas” magazine, Feb. 1947

The last time I was in that area, the buildings were still there, but I have to think they’ll be demolished soon in order to keep cramming claustrophobic “density” into “Uptown.” Here’s what it looked like in 2011:

Google Street View, 2011 (15 years ago!)

And lastly, because this was where my father’s store was for a long time (I can never remember when the store made its final move to Maple Avenue), this is an area I spent a lot of time in as a child. The other day I was watching old Channel 8 news footage on SMU’s Jones Fillm Collection YouTube channel, and when I saw this moment in a clip from an interview with Rene Martinez in 1972, I instantly recognized the location. It was shot in the 2500 block of Cedar Springs, looking toward Fairmount from about Routh Street. The Aldredge Book Store was just a few steps down from that tall tree at the left.

I’ve looked at the clock. It’s 11:40 PM on Memorial Day. Thanks to my chronic procrastination, I’m three days late in observing my father’s birthday, but I did manage to post it before the Memorial Day Weekend was officially over! You have to take your victories wherever you can find them….

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Sources & Notes

Photo of Dick Bosse standing in the Aldredge Book Store (2506 Cedar Springs) was taken on August 3, 1969 by Andy Hanson for The Dallas Times Herald; from the Andy Hanson Collection, Dallas History & Archives, Dallas Public Library (PA97-8/1285-017A).

See other Flashback Dallas posts about The Aldredge Book Store here.

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Copyright © 2026 Paula Bosse. All Rights Reserved.

8 Comments
April 7, 2026

The Art Work of Dallas — 1895

“On Exall Lake”

by Paula Bosse

In my job working in the Dallas History & Archives of the downtown Dallas Public Library, I am constantly amazed by everything that’s there — the collection is so vast that no one could ever see it all. Books, maps, posters, periodicals, newspapers, a hallway of clipping files, microfilm, manuscript archives, and — the collection that speaks to me loudest — the photographs. The Dallas History & Archives has over a million photos (!). A roomful of prints and a staggering number of negatives. So much to see, so little time!

One of my favorite collections of photos is found in a subscription publication that was issued in 1895, in 1910, and in 1925: The Art Work of Dallas. Each of these is comprised of about 72 photos of buildings, streets, residences, and natural vistas. The photographs are beautiful — they are collotypes, and they have a soft, almost dreamy quality. I’m not sure why, but the photographers have gone uncredited in these collections (I suspect many of the photos from the 1895 edition were probably taken by Clifton Church).

The 1895 edition has recently been painstakingly scanned by Adrianne Pierce, our photo archives digitizer extraordinaire. The entire edition is available on the DPL Digital Collections site here (this “collection” page has the pages in order with the text included — to advance through the collection, click the “right” arrow at the top right of the page) (if you want to see only the images, with additional information about each photo, go here).

Pro tip: If you want to zoom WAY in and explore the photos (totally worth it!), go to the vertical “Tools” bar directly to the left of the photo, hover your mouse over the buttons, then click the button for “Zoom to 100%.” (By the way, you’ll see a “download” button. Unfortunately, the images on the Digital Collections site are not downloadable.)

I’m going to put a few of my favorites from the 1895 edition in this post — to see more information about them, click the title in blue to go to the DPL site. The photos below are larger when clicked.

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At the top, “On Exall Lake.” Below is a detail from the photo. When’s the last time you saw a windmill in Highland Park?

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“Scene on Akard Street.” It took me a while to figure out where this was shot, but it is on Akard, about half a block south of Main, looking north. Ludwig Philipson’s cigar store at the right once stood at what is now 1500 Main (southeast corner). The Rowan Building, which later housed the Marvin Drug Co., is at the top left, on the northwest corner.

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“Dallas Opera House.” On Commerce, near, I think, what is now Record Street.

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“The Dallas Club Building.” Commerce and S. Poydras. There’s a lot of architecture going on there. A detail is below the full photo.

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“Looking East from the Court House Tower.” A view of Commerce Street.

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“Gaston Building.” Commerce and S. Lamar. And a detail.

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“A Main Street Scene.” Main looking east. The Knepfly Building — seen on the right, with the tall clock standing on the sidewalk in front — was on the southwest corner of Main and Poydras. I love seeing the very high curbs from this period (in the detail below).

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“Hughes Bros. Manufacturing Co.” Still standing! 1401 S. Ervay, in The Cedars.

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“Scene on Ewing Avenue, Oak Cliff.” I love the two women walking down the sidewalk.

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“Residence of John Bookhout.” On the corner of what is now N. St. Paul and Munger.

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“Scene on Trinity River.” I love this.

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Sources & Notes

All images are from The Art Work of Dallas, W. H. Parish Publishing Co., 1895, with text by Dallasite Paul Giraud; from the Dallas History & Archives, Dallas Public Library (call number 976.42812 A784 1895).

See how collotypes are made in a very short video here.

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Copyright © 2026 Paula Bosse. All Rights Reserved.

2 Comments
February 25, 2026

You Never Even Called Me by My (Correctly Spelled) Name — 1975

Photo: Buddy Magazine

by Paula Bosse

Every time I come across this photo I clipped from an old Buddy magazine, I laugh. I don’t think I’ve ever considered the word “disgruntled” as an adjective to describe David Allan Coe, but I think we’d all be pretty disgruntled if we were the headliner at the Longhorn Ballroom, and they couldn’t even spell our name right on the marquee.

A disgruntled David Allan Coe points to the marquee with his name misspelled in front of the Longhorn Ballroom. Photo by Stoney Burns.

If you aren’t familiar with the excessively “colorful” David Allan Coe… well… you’re probably not a fan of the extreme side of Outlaw Country Music. I swear I heard “You Never Even Called Me by My Name” every single time I went to the Lakewood Landing, back when I went there a LOT. I hope it’s still on the jukebox. You can’t call yourself a true Texan unless you’ve sung along to this song in a packed bar. (You can listen to this legendary DAC song on YouTube here — listen all the way through!)

And speaking of Buddy, enjoy this Shiner Beer ad that appeared in its pages in 1975:

And still speaking of Buddy, I understand that all (…ALL!) (…or almost all…) back issues — going back to the first issue from July 1973 — are in the process of being fully scanned and will be coming soon to an internet near you. This is such an important cultural archive of Texas music (and Dallas music)! There is a very large selection of Buddy at the downtown Dallas Public Library, but there are gaps in the collection. I look forward to wandering through the back issues when the archive is up and running!

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Sources & Notes

Photo of David Allen Allan Coe is by the legendary Stoney Burns; it appeared in a May 1975 issue of Buddy magazine. The Shiner ad is from an April 1975 issue of Buddy. Both issues are from the very large collection housed at the Dallas Public Library.

Buddy is still going strong, after 53 years. (And so is the 86-year-old DAC!)

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Copyright © 2026 Paula Bosse. All Rights Reserved.

7 Comments
February 9, 2026

Flashback Dallas on Patreon: Still a Thing?

Dallas Tennis Club members, ca. 1890 (Dallas Historical Society)

by Paula Bosse

Why, yes, it IS still a thing!

If you would like to mosey over to my Patreon page and become a member (all it takes is $5 a month!), you will get posts sent directly to your email box five days a week, power outages and weather emergencies permitting. Here’s what was going on over there in November and December:

DECEMBER 2025

  • SMU’s Downtown Music School – 1920s (Bush Temple of Music)
  • Merry Christmas! (a Centennial Rangerette helps Santa Claus with his cowboy boots)
  • Merry Christmas Eve from Dallas Railway – 1949
  • Where Do You Go If You Have Nautical Outfits and Want to Start a Fire? – 1951
  • Helium! (Fort Worth Bonus) – 1924 (world’s first helium plant!)
  • Anyone for Tennis? – ca. 1890 (photo seen at the top of this post)
  • Shovel Supply Co. – 1939
  • Ballard’s Magnolia Station, Oak Lawn
  • Cowboys Fans – 1978 (dedicated kids waiting for the Super Bowl champs)
  • 4936 Junius, Munger Place – 1912 (real estate ad)
  • Belmont Cleaning Co., 1914 Greenville Ave. – 1927 (still standing)
  • Arra Desmond (1869-1948)
  • Central Fire Station – 1931
  • Dallas Athletic Club, Early Days
  • Town & Country: “The Elegance of Downtown Dining” – 1968
  • Every Window Broken: Forest Avenue High School – 1926
  • Dallas Motorcycle Club Group Photo – ca. 1930s
  • “I’d Give a Month’s Pay for a Dr Pepper” – 1944
  • Clerical Garb, When in Texas – 1960
  • N-M Hanky-Cigs for Xmas – 1959 (weird stocking stuffers…)

NOVEMBER 2025

  • Foot Traffic Outside H. L. Green (Wilson Building)
  • Happy Inflatable Thanksgiving! (1965) (children’s balloon parade)
  • Park-O-Meters – 1936 (downtown’s first parking meters)
  • Cotton Bowl Roller Rink – 1946
  • Young Jayne Mansfield at the Front Door of Her University Park Home – 1940s
  • Waterworks at Browder Springs
  • Mallalieu Methodist Episcopal Church (Moon Mansion) – ca. 1909
  • Babe – 1932 (Babe Didrikson, outside Dallas City Hall)
  • The Auto-Plane – 1946
  • Chucky in Dallas – 1951 (Dunton’s Cafeteria, Elm Street)
  • Fair Park: “Fun and Thrills”?
  • Have Whistle and Ticket Book, Will Travel (lawman on Main Street)
  • Ursuline Boarder – 1927 (teenager’s dorm room)
  • Fun with Livestock – 1944 (WWII tourist snapshot)
  • Soldier at Dealey Plaza – 1944 (WWII tourist snapshot)
  • Our City Hall… (is in the crosshairs)
  • “Home on the Range” in the M Streets – 1972 (composer David Guion)
  • Hack Life in Highland Park – 1962 (official taxi license)

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Sources & Notes

Photo at top of this post is from a December 2025 post — “Anyone for Tennis? — ca. 1890” — the photo is from the Richard Potter Photographs collection, Dallas Historical Society (object ID: V.91.2.14).

To see past lists of what I’ve posted to Patreon, they are here.

More info on supporting my Flashback Dallas work on Patreon can be found here. All paid subscriber levels have the same access. You can cancel, restart, or change your subscription amount at any time. Thank you!

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Copyright © 2026 Paula Bosse. All Rights Reserved.

2 Comments
February 5, 2026

Dallas, Through Soviet Eyes

Valentin Zorin

by Paula Bosse

A bit of a departure here: I’m recommending a very interesting article by my friend Julia Barton, a writer and broadcaster who often combines her love of various aspects of media and her love of her hometown, Dallas. I’ve mentioned Julia several times in Flashback Dallas posts. I stumbled across a taped presentation she had made at SMU about the history of the Trinity River, and I was struck by how similar we were. We’ve corresponded and have met a few times when she’s been back in Dallas for visits with her family. We’re, as they say, simpatico. She’s given me some great tips on topics I ended up writing about; one of my favorite posts — “‘Enemy Aliens'” and the WWII Internment Camp at Seagoville” — was written because of her.

Back to this article she’s written that you should really check out: it’s about a weird and fascinating television production from the late 1970s that appeared on Soviet TV as an odd bit of anti-Capitalist propaganda masquerading as travelogue. It was filmed here and is jam-packed with Dallas stereotypes and all its extravagant extravagances, its big shiny things, its “haves” and its “have nots.” Big hair, Society People at parties, and ripped-off footage of H. L. Hunt. The “journalist” tour guide was Valentin Zorin, a big name in Soviet Russia, who had legions of fans, including one V. Putin.

If you want to dip your toe into this story, head over to Julia’s newsletter, Continuous Wave, and read her article “Sound Off: How Not to Be a Propagandist.” Click a bunch of her links. It’s quite the strange journey into a lopsided version of Big D that is probably not one you’d expect.

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Sources & Notes

Top image is from Julia Barton’s newsletter — it’s a screenshot from the 1978 program “The Puzzles of Dallas” — in her article, Julia links to the full film on YouTube (it’s in Russian, but you get the idea…).

Thank you, Julia!

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Copyright © 2026 Paula Bosse. All Rights Reserved.

1 Comment