The Rolling Hills of Highland Park — 1911
Armstrong Avenue (click for larger image)
by Paula Bosse
Highland Park in its early days of development. The postcards above and below show Armstrong Avenue, looking east, from about Preston Road.
An even earlier view can be seen in the postcard below (ca. 1908), which shows “Berkeley Avenue,” the original name of Armstrong (see newspaper clippings at the bottom of this post for more on Berkeley Ave.).
All of these postcards show what looks to be the bridge over a stretch of Turtle Creek then called Lake Neoma.
I’m not sure when the name “Lake Neoma” ceased to be used (I believe it’s now Wycliff Ave. Lake), but here is a nifty little drawing of it from a 1915 map from the Flippen-Prather Realty Co., the developers of Highland Park.
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Berkeley Avenue was renamed Armstrong Avenue around 1908 or 1909 in honor of John S. Armstrong, who developed the land that later became Highland Park (East). Below is a photo and paragraph of an article from the Sept. 13, 1908 edition of The Dallas Morning News (the Argyle Avenue mentioned was later renamed as an extension of Oak Lawn Ave.)
Dallas Morning News, Sept. 13, 1908 (photo and excerpt)
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Postcards from Flickr. “Berkeley Avenue” from Flickr, here (it is suggested that this shows Berkley Ave. in Oak Cliff, but this is incorrect — it is definitely Highland Park).
Map is a detail from the Flippen-Prather map of 1915, which can be viewed here.
Click pictures for larger images (top image and map are HUGE).
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Copyright © 2014 Paula Bosse. All Rights Reserved.
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