by Paula Bosse
The kindly gentleman in the bow-tie will look after your five-year-old when you send her to the convenience store for bread and milk.
I’m assuming this is one of the first national ads for Dallas company 7-Eleven as it expanded and expanded and expanded beyond Dallas and the South. How quaint.
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Copyright © 2014 Paula Bosse. All Rights Reserved.
by Paula Bosse
Sometimes a noisy, bustling metropolis really hits the spot, but there are times I long to have completely empty streets all to myself. Which is one reason I love this serene and peaceful (or perhaps “post-apocalyptic,” depending on your half-full/half-empty world-view) scene of Dallas, totally deserted save for a partial view of a single car in the distance. The brand new “triple underpass” was unveiled in 1936, the year Dallas was obsessed with showing off what a fantastically modern city it was to the throngs of visitors flooding in for the Texas Centennial celebrations. G.B. Dealey himself rode the first car through the underpass. Perhaps that’s his little car heading up Main Street.
Above, the “Business District, from the West.” Note the absence of Dealey Plaza, which wouldn’t be completed until 1941 and not officially named “Dealey Plaza” until 1946. …After that, the place wasn’t thought about in any especially significant way until 1963.
“The Gateway to Dallas, Texas,” with beautiful Dealey Plaza now set in place, one day to become the most-visited historic site in the city. Despite its grim connection to the assassination, every time I drive through that underpass I always get a little thrill. Almost 80 years after it became a landmark, the triple underpass is still a remarkably cool piece of Dallas architecture and engineering.
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Copyright © 2014 Paula Bosse. All Rights Reserved.
by Paula Bosse
Oak Cliff, a suburb of Dallas, presents a landscape of Hills, Vales, Lakes and Vistas, the whole forming a panorama of beauty. Apart from its natural attractions, Oak Cliff has been laid off to meet the demand of an existing necessity for the rapidly increasing population of Dallas.
This beautiful suburb, overlooking the city, half a mile from the court house, and just across the river, has been magnificently improved at great cost, with Lakes, Parks, Paved Streets, Water Works, School Buildings and an Elevated Railway which is built to this suburb from the Court House square.
With these pre-requisites, its attractive situation, great elevation, pure and abundant water supply, it offers superior advantages as a beautiful, agreeable, healthful and picturesque site for residences, while the grounds between the foot-hills and river are admirably adapted for factory sites by reason of the never-failing and abundant supply of water and railroad facilities.
Mr. Marsalis, the president of the Oak Cliff Co., deserves credit for his successful management of the many advancements of Oak Cliff and its people.
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Oak Cliff incorporated in 1890, boasting a population of 2,470, and the PR department of the Oak Cliff Co. was on promotional overdrive, running this ad many times over the course of the year. More on the history of one of Dallas’ most “beautiful, agreeable, healthful and picturesque” suburbs can be found here.
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From the front page of the June 5, 1890 edition of the Southern Mercury, a weekly newspaper printed in Dallas.
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Copyright © 2014 Paula Bosse. All Rights Reserved.
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