South Pearl, In the Shadow of Downtown — 1950s
by Paula Bosse
Skyscraper vs. paper hat (click for much larger image)
by Paula Bosse
Great shot of the Farmers Market area, showing the 400 block of South Pearl. South Pearl intersects with Canton at the light, halfway up the photo. Just past the intersection on the left is the IOOF Oddfellows Temple. And the Republic National Bank Building — which, until 1959, was the tallest building in the city — looms at the top left. (I think this is the same view seen here a decade or so earlier.)
Below, a map of the area today, with an X marking the spot seen in this photo. This area — where all the wholesale produce markets used to be — is now, largely, condos. Call me crazy, but I will always prefer gritty street corners to sterile condos. …Always.
(click for larger image)
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Photo from the Dallas Farmers Market — Henry Forschmidt Collection 1938-1986, Dallas Municipal Archives; it can be viewed via the Portal to Texas History, here (with a not-entirely correct description).
Map from Bing.
Previous Flashback Dallas posts on the Farmers Market area can be found here.
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Copyright © 2015 Paula Bosse. All Rights Reserved.
Flashback : Dallas 
That area dates back to the 1870s railroad days, and yet the original Farmers Market came to exist around the 1920s as a small location,it was the freight of the rails that brought the produce in that area, and the seedy look took decades too create and it was fun.
…Long gone is that black and white, of life and yet get this it happen every where the black and white of modern life as it fades was torn down all over the nation and in Europe….and that was the old city dump int he 1880s, and that was quite a dig……it is a great story, because like the west end those places of character are gone forever……
Thanks for the image we can still reflect on what it was,..seedy and full of life and flies……
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Great photos and story from days gone by. Thank you.
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Thanks, Danny!
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They are going to tear some more down for the Belo Park that is really a waste of time, it is hard getting the Homeless situation out of that location which began in the 1950s with the Farmers Market…..
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The view does seem very similar. As to the age difference, the later photo is more like twenty years later than the earlier one, the car at the end of the block being a 1958 Ford.
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Great posts Paula. Bought much produce from the market for my parents grocery store in the late 1940s and early 1950s. Your blog brings back many good memories of growing up in Dallas.
Travis Brann
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Thank you so much, Travis.
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Dallas was best in that natural thinking, for food business, when there was a freight and hauling and shipping yard, now gone since the 1990;s….
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