July | 2016 | Flashback : Dallas

July 13, 2016

DFW Airport Under Construction — 1973

A bird’s-eye view of the old Harrington place (click for HUGE image)

by Paula Bosse

Dallas-Fort Worth Airport, during construction in 1973. DFW before it was DFW.

When DFW opened in January, 1974 — on 700 acres of land purchased from Irving rancher R. D. Harrington — it was served by only 8 airlines, had 3 runways and 56 gates. American Airlines Flight 341 from New York/Memphis/Little Rock was the first commercial flight to land at the airport, on Jan. 13, 1974. There was apparently an onboard battle to claim bragging rights to being the first passengers off the very first flight: a Fort Worth couple beat out a Dallas businessman for the honors — the Dallas man asserted, “I was the third person off the plane as the result of a shoulder block from the young lady who was the first person off” (Dallas Morning News, “First Flight A Scramble For History by Charlie Bates, Jan. 14, 1974).

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Sources & Notes

Top photo titled “Airview of terminal buildings and highway through the airport at Dallas-Fort Worth Airport during construction, ca. 1973; from UTA Libraries, Special Collections — more info here.

Second photo is from the Texas State Historical Association 103rd Annual program (March, 1999), found on UNT’s Portal to Texas History site, here.

More on the history of DFW Airport can be found in the Fort Worth Star-Telegram article “40th Anniversary: DFW Ready to Soar Into the Future” by Andrea Ahles (Jan. 11, 2014), here.

DFW Wikipedia entry is here.

An aerial view of the airport today, from Google Maps, is here.

Photos are MUCH larger when clicked.

6 Comments

July 12, 2016

Views of Elm Street, With Cameo Appearances by the Fox Theater — 1920s-1960s

Elm looking west from Akard, ca. 1922

by Paula Bosse

From the earliest days of moving pictures, most downtown movie houses called Elm Street home. Some were originally vaudeville houses which occasionally featured short films between acts of the live revues, and some were theaters built expressly as move theaters. Most of the downtown theaters could be found on Elm Street, and the stretch between, say, Field and Harwood became known as “film row” or “theater row.” Most theaters were located on the north side of Elm in the blocks east of Akard Street, but a few found a home west of Akard. One of these — which I’ve seen in several of the photos I’ve posted — was the Fox Theater, located next to the Gus Roos store, at 1411 Elm, just west of the Akard intersection.

The Fox — which was named after owner Max Fox, a Polish immigrant who also owned the nearby Strand Theater — opened in the early months of 1922. During its 40-year history, it had something of a “colorful” life: despite opening with a sweet, family-friendly Mary Pickford movie and then showing mostly second-run features, it ultimately became one of Elm Street’s seedier theaters, showing cheap exploitation flicks and, later, becoming a “burlesk” house with on-stage strippers and “adult-only” fare playing continuously from 9 AM (!) to 11 PM. The Fox remained in business until the end of 1961 when property in the 1400 block began to be sold in order to build the First National Bank Building. (A comprehensive history of the theater can be found on Cinema Treasures.)

As I said, I’ve noticed the Fox Theater in a number of photos I’ve come across — some of which I’ve posted previously. Here are a few views of Elm Street in which the Fox pops up in a cameo appearance.

The top photo shows Elm looking west in about 1922. Down the street a bit you can see the Dixie Theater at 1315 Elm, one of the (if not THE) oldest permanent movie theater spaces in Dallas. The Dixie began life in 1909, the third theater in the location originally occupied by the Theatorium, which opened in 1906. (I wrote about the Dixie and other early “photoplay houses” in Dallas here.)

A similar view from about the same year is seen in this postcard (click to see a very large image):

From the WWII-era, this fantastic color photo, looking east (the Queen, Telenews, Capitol, Rialto, and Palace theaters can be seen in this photo, with the silhouette of the Majestic Theatre’s sign seen way in the distance):

In 1955, the wall of the building next door to the theater collapsed, killing several people (I wrote about that building collapse, here):

And, lastly, a photo of a decidedly less glamorous Elm Street, showing the “Fox Burlesk” in its final months, taken about 1961:

Dallas Morning News, March 20, 1922

March 19, 1922

1940

1950

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Sources & Notes

Top photo from Troy Sherrod’s book Historic Dallas Theatres; photo from the Dallas Public Library.

1940s color photo from Noah Jeppson’s Unvisited Dallas post, “Elm Street 1945,” here.

UPI photo showing the building collapse was posted a few years ago by Robert Wilonsky on the Dallas Observer’s Unfair Park blog, here.

Bottom color photo from Flickr user Schaffershot54, here.

Other Flashback Dallas posts on Dallas theaters can be found here.

6 Comments

July 11, 2016

Summer Rerun: 7-Eleven Day!

by Paula Bosse

Today — July 11 — is “7-Eleven Day,” the day when the Dallas company that revolutionized the world of retail convenience offers free Slurpees to a hot and sweaty public. The 1966 ad above is one of the first things I ever posted on this blog. It’s sweet and quaint. The world has changed quite a bit since that folksy advertisement appeared 50 years ago. Read the ad copy in the original post, here.

July 10, 2016

The Dallas Express — A Look Inside the Offices of the City’s Most Important Black Newspaper — 1924

2600 Swiss, home of The Dallas Express (click for larger image)

by Paula Bosse

Without question, The Dallas Express (1892/3-1970) was the most important and most widely-read black-owned newspaper published for Dallas’ African-American community. In addition to stories of particular interest to its Dallas and Texas readership, it also covered national and international news, and in the Jim Crow era, when black Dallasites were rarely mentioned in white-owned newspapers except in crime reports, The Express reported on the people, the businesses, the churches, and the achievements of their large community. They also wrote about politics and issues of race and discrimination. One of the paper’s slogans was “A Champion of Justice, A Messenger of Hope.”

I’ve been interested in newspapers, journalism, and the actual physical process of printing newspapers for as long as I can remember, but until a couple of years ago, I was not aware of The Dallas Express, founded in 1892 by publisher/editor W. E. King. Discovering this paper and its stories about my hometown has been eye-opening. The Dallas Express is an important — and often overlooked — source of Dallas history. I love reading through issues of The Express because unlike white-owned papers of this period, it presents a realistic and human chronicle of the everyday lives of Dallas’ black men and women, something which was almost completely ignored by The Dallas Morning News and The Dallas Times Herald.

For many years, the offices of the Express were just north of Deep Ellum, at 2600 Swiss — at the corner of Good Street, about where Brad Oldham’s Traveling Man sculpture stands today. (I have a feeling the actual location was in the middle of what is now Good-Latimer. See the location on a 1921 Sanborn map here.) Happily, the Express printed a full-page ad for itself in the June 7, 1924 edition, so we can see what the Swiss Avenue building, its offices, and its production rooms looked like. These photos were taken by noted Dallas photographer Frank Rogers. (Apologies for the muddy quality of these photos — I’d love to see the crisp originals!)

These photos show the Dallas Express offices as they looked in 1924, when the newspaper had already been in business for 32 years. The exterior of the two-story building can be seen in the photo at the top — standing next to a private residence. (Click photos to see larger images.)

Below, president and business manger (and, later, owner), C. F. Starks:

The editor’s office (John W. Rice was the editor at this time and is, presumably, the man in the foreground):

The business office:

The composition room:

The linotype department (I have written about my fascination with linotype machines here):

And the press room:

The text from the ad (this special “Pythian Edition”of the paper was printed to coincide with the 40th annual meeting of the Knights of Pythias):

“YOUR Paper,” The 5th Largest of its Kind in America, Commends The Knights of Pythias Along With All of the Other Fraternities Represented Here for Their WONDERFUL PROGRESS.

THE EXPRESS believes that much of the splendid success which has come to the Fraternities of Texas, has come because of the fact that they have told the public “well and often” about the benefits which they offer and the advantages which they bring. And too, this paper takes a great deal of PRIDE in the thought that it has helped to bring this to pass because it is the medium in Texas best fitted to tell the world about the PROGRESS of the institution of our State.

These views of our force and the equipment at our plant explain why we can guarantee “Distinctive Service” and “Meritorious Printing” to every one of our customers.

The 20,000 copies in this special issue will go to every corner of America and to some foreign countries. No other journal of the Race in the Southwest does this.

The Dallas Express Pub. Co. Solicits Your Patronage not because it is a Negro institution but because it can guarantee to you the sort of service that you need. No job too small for the greatest consideration. No order too big for us to fill.

TEXAS’ OLDEST AND LARGEST NEGRO NEWSPAPER AND PRINTING PLANT
In Dallas Since 1892
2600 Swiss Avenue

The full-page ad:

Dallas Express, June 7, 1924

Another photo of the printing room appeared in an Express ad which ran in the paper the following week:

Dallas Express, June 14, 1924

1923 Dallas directory

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Sources & Notes

Photos by Frank Rogers. Original prints might be in the Frank Rogers Collection at the Dallas Public Library, but nothing showed up when I searched the DPL database. Original crisp prints would be wonderful to see!

Photos appeared in the June 7, 1924 edition of The Dallas Express. The full newspaper can be found here. Only a few years’ worth of scanned issues of The Express are available on UNT’s Portal to Texas History site — mostly 1919-1924 — they can be accessed here.

Read about The Dallas Express at the Portal to Texas History, here; the Wikipedia entry is here.

July 8, 2016

Dallas Police Department — 1914

On the steps of the Municipal Building (click for much larger image)

by Paula Bosse

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“Officers & Members of Dallas Police Dept. Assembled on Steps of New City Hall, Opening Day, Oct. 17th 1914,” photo by Frank Rogers, from the George Cook Collection, DeGolyer Library, Central University Libraries, Southern Methodist University; more information here. I have edited the image.

All images very large when clicked.

1 Comment

July 6, 2016

Mrs. Hartgraves’ Cafe, and Bonnie & Clyde Earning Paychecks on Swiss Avenue

The Swiss Circle building, 2016 (click for larger image) / Photo: Paula Bosse

by Paula Bosse

Bonne and Clyde were famous for being from West Dallas, but each actually spent a good amount of time in East Dallas. Working. Earning an honest living. Bonnie worked as a waitress, and Clyde worked in a mirror and glass company. Both worked in establishments on Swiss Avenue, though probably at different times. They hadn’t met yet, but it’s interesting to know they worked at businesses only a few blocks apart: Hartgraves Cafe was at 3308 Swiss, and United Mirror and Glass was at 2614 Swiss. Both buildings are still standing.

The Hartgraves Cafe (the name of which is always misspelled in historical accounts as Hargrave’s Cafe — even by Bonnie and Clyde enthusiasts) was in a curved building at the corner of Swiss and College (it is now at the corner of Swiss and Hall). 50-something-year-old Mrs. Alcie Hartgraves (her first name usually appeared in directories as “Elsie,” sometimes as “Alice”) opened the restaurant a few months after her husband, Ben, had died in 1923. It lasted until late 1930 or early 1931. (All clippings and photos are larger when clicked.)

1928 Dallas directory

Swiss Avenue between College Avenue and Floride, 1928 directory

According to Bonnie and Clyde histories, Bonnie worked there as a teenaged waitress with an absent husband, from 1928 to early 1929. According to one woman who worked at the Yates Laundry, just across from the cafe’s back door, Bonnie was a very nice person. Here, in a 1972 oral history, Rose Myers — who worked at the Yates Laundry for 25 years — remembers Bonnie from those days at Mrs. Hartgraves’ cafe:

From the book Reminiscences

The laundry is long gone, but here’s what the back side of the building Bonnie worked in looks like today.

Photo: Paula Bosse

And here’s a Coca-Cola ghost sign, painted on the end of the building that faces Hall.

Photo: Paula Bosse

The Bonnie Parker connection is about the only reason people know about this odd little building in Old East Dallas. From looking through Dallas street directories, it appears that this building was built in 1915 or 1916 as a retail strip which, until Mrs. Hartgraves left, usually contained three or four businesses. The question is: why was it shaped like that? Many people think it was a streetcar stop, the cars using the circle as a place to turn around, but old maps showing streetcar routes from this period don’t show cars going down this part of Swiss. Below, a detail from a 1919 map, with Swiss and College streets in red. Streetcar tracks on Swiss turn left at Texas and then right on Live Oak, completely bypassing the circle area. (Another handy map of old streetcar routes laid over a present-day Google map can be found here.)

1919 map detail, via UNT

There’s a great view of the area in the 1921 Sanborn map here (with a different angle here). It may just be that the building was built to take advantage of/conform to the odd jog that Swiss Avenue takes in front of it. Here’s an aerial view from the recent past.

Bing Maps

Our own teensy and unspectacular Royal Crescent! (You know what they say — “Everything’s bigger in Bath….”)

But what about Clyde? Clyde worked at a mirror and glass company four-tenths of a mile west. Here’s an ad from 1928 (the same year Bonnie was working at Hartgraves).

via Bonnie & Clyde’s Hideout

Charles “Chili” Blatney worked with Clyde at United Glass and Mirror. In the Dallas Morning News article “He Helps Dallas to See Itself” by David Hawkins (DMN, March 17, 1970), Hawkins wrote: “Blatney remembers him as the friend he was: The little guy who always wore a hat and who would jerk it off and beat the floor with it in merriment when a good joke was told. […] ‘I guess I was surprised to see him turn real bad,’ [said Blatney].”

The building still stands, almost unrecognizable.

So, yeah, East Dallas was the stomping grounds of Bonnie and Clyde, back when they were living paycheck-to-paycheck and before they had begun their short-lived life of crime.

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Sources & Notes

Photos of the Swiss Circle building taken by me when I stumbled across it yesterday. I knew what it was when I saw it, but I didn’t really know much about it, other than the Bonnie connection. The building is currently vacant, currently for lease, and currently a weird shade of green. It’s a great space and a cool building. The back side is FANTASTIC!

The surname of the property owner (or property manager) is rather unbelievably … Dunaway.

The passage quoting Rose Myers, who worked at the Yates Laundry, is from the book Reminiscences: A Glimpse of Old East Dallas.

A discussion of this building can be found on the Phorum discussion board, here.

Other Flashback Dallas posts on Bonnie and Clyde can be found here.

Click everything. See bigger images!

14 Comments

July 4, 2016

4th of July at White Rock Lake — 1946

So much going on here! (Click for super-gigantic image!)

by Paula Bosse

I love absolutely everything about this photo of July 4th celebrants relaxing at White Rock Lake near the Bath House (back when people actually swam in the lake!). All that’s needed is a pet monkey on a leash and a few parasols, and you’d have an updated Tex-ified version of Seurat’s La Grande Jatte painting.

This is a photo definitely worth zooming in on. All images here are really big — click ’em! You can practically smell the wienies roasting/croissants baking. Have a happy and safe 4th of July!

19 Comments

July 3, 2016

Bowling In the Sky — 1964

Sylvia Wene battles Dick Weber and turbulence…

by Paula Bosse

It’s a bowling alley. …In an airplane.

As publicity stunts go, this one was pretty good. It even had a cutesy name: Operation AstroBowl. American Airlines wanted to promote their great big Boeing 707 cargo planes, so someone came up with the idea of putting a bowling alley in one of them. Happily, a company that manufactured bowling alley equipment — American Machine and Foundry (AMF) — was keen to jump on the promotion bandwagon. They installed the regulation 79-foot lane — complete with automatic pin-setting equipment and gutters — in one of the American Airlines jet freighters. It took 4 days. Looking at the photos, it resembled a very large MRI tube.

Since they had the lane and the equipment in there, they pretty much had to get a couple of champion players on board to bowl a few mid-air frames. As luck would have it, the National All-Star Tournament (aka “The World Series of Bowling”) was — hey! — to be held in Dallas at Fair Park Coliseum a week after the stunt. Serendipity! Champions Dick Weber and Sylvia Wene were roped in to play a 5-mile-high game in the sky.

So much to promote!

Operation AstroBowl took place on January 6, 1964 at cruising altitude between New York’s Kennedy International Airport and Love Field. Sylvia won. Barely. But this story made it into countless newspapers across the country the following day, so, really, it was the publicists who won. Drinks, I’m sure, were on them.

Dick Weber bowling at 500 miles an hour

AP story which appeared all over the country, Jan. 7, 1964

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Sources & Notes

Top photo appeared in the Encyclopedia Britannica Yearbook and was brought to my attention by Steve Dirkx (thanks, Steve!).

Story and photos by the Associated Press.

If you’re on Facebook, a tiny bit of film footage can we watched here.

Hold the presses! I’ve been translated! Check out this bowling post in Portuguese (!), on a Brazilian bowling site, here.

3 Comments

July 2, 2016

The Inwood Theatre

Seven years after opening, in 1954… (click for larger image)

by Paula Bosse

The Inwood Theatre opened at Lovers Lane and Inwood Road on May 16, 1947. Even though the surrounding neighborhood has changed pretty dramatically over the years, the exterior of the H. F. Pettigrew-designed building looks pretty much the same today. Happily, the 69-year old movie theater is still in business.

The Grand Opening — May 16, 1947 (click to see larger image)

via Cinema Treasures

via D Magazine

via Architexas on Instagram

Ad detail, May, 1947

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Sources & Notes

Top photo from D Magazine, here; from the Texas/Dallas History and Archives Division, Dallas Public Library. If you zoom in, there seems to be some drama going on inside one of those parked cars:

Images are larger when clicked.

13 Comments

Month: July, 2016

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