Main Street — ca. 1942
by Paula Bosse
The Merc, Titche’s, the White Plaza (click for much larger image)
by Paula Bosse
I love postcards like this. All signs of people, automobiles, and streetcars have been magically erased. Poof! This lunchtime scene of empty streets and sidewalks — looking west down Main from Harwood at 12:30 PM — was definitely a view never seen by a human being!
In trying to figure out the year of this image, I narrowed it down to about 1942 — that was the year the Mercantile Building was completed, and that was also about the time that Henry Pollock’s luggage store packed up (…as it were…) and vacated 1911-13 Main (the store was no longer listed at this address by the time the 1943 directory was issued). That’s not to say that the sign painted on the side of the building didn’t remain after Pollock had left, but later occupants would most likely have painted over it as soon as they moved in.
Speaking of directories, here’s a look at the businesses in the 1900 block of Main — between St. Paul and Harwood — in 1941. (Click for larger image.)
For me, the interesting thing about this postcard is seeing the Titche’s building (at the corner of St. Paul) before it was expanded. The small buildings between Titche’s and the White Plaza Hotel (a hotel which was originally Dallas’ first Hilton — Conrad’s first-ever hotel to bear his name) were demolished sometime around 1952, and the expansion began that year, its 50th in business in Dallas.
The original building was built in 1929, designed by George Dahl (whose office was, a few years later, right across the street); the architectural firm responsible for the expansion was Thomas, Jameson & Merrill.
Here’s what the building looked like before the expansion (with another magic erasure — this time, the hotel at the end of the block has been removed to make way for an unobstructed view of the moon):
And here’s the building after its expansion:
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Sources & Notes
More on the Titche’s expansion in the Dallas Morning News article “Titche’s Reports Plans to Double Present Size” by Edd Routt (Sept. 7, 1952).
Present-day photo of the Titche’s building, from Wikipedia, is here.
Present-day street view showing roughly the same vantage point as the postcard at top, can be seen on Google Street View, here.
A previous Flashback Dallas post — “George Dahl’s Titche-Goettinger Building” — is here.
All images larger when clicked.
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Copyright © 2015 Paula Bosse. All Rights Reserved.
[…] More on the Titche’s building (including news on its expansion in 1952 and an architect’s drawing) can be found in the Flashback Dallas post “Main Street — ca. 1942,” here. […]
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It was such a thrill to visit Santa at Titche’s at Christmas when I was young.
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I’ve heard a lot of people talk about the fact that Titche’s was one of the main places in Dallas to visit Santa every Christmas.
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[…] “Main Street — ca. 1942.” […]
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I am looking for any information on Drake’s Drug store that was located on the corner of main and harwood in the 1930’s
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Sorry — just saw this, Steven. I used a 1925 photo showing Drake’s in a post a few months ago (“The Hilton Hotel, Main & Harwood”) — it shows Drake’s on the corner (at some point it was replaced with a Skillern’s): https://flashbackdallas.files.wordpress.com/2016/01/hilton_1925_dmn-blog_det.jpg
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The link I posted in my previous reply is to an enlarged detail of a photo showing the old Hilton Hotel. To see the original photo, go to this post and scroll to the end: https://flashbackdallas.com/2016/01/16/the-hilton-hotel-main-harwood/
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And see that site occupied by a Skillern’s in the late-’50s: https://flashbackdallas.com/2016/10/27/50-years-before-main-street-garden-park/
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[…] Postcards are from previous Flashback Dallas Posts: “George Dahl’s Titche-Goettinger Building,” here; and “Main Street — ca. 1942,” here. […]
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