The Adolphus, The Oriental, The Magnolia
by Paula Bosse
Akard looking north… (click me!!)
by Paula Bosse
This is just great. I’ve never seen this photo, which was taken sometime between 1922 and 1924. Dallas has never looked more … architectural. (Click that photo — it’s worth seeing it bigger.)
The view is looking north on Akard toward Commerce, from some building on or near Jackson Street. The Adolphus Hotel (built in 1912 and still standing) is straight ahead, the shorter Oriental Hotel (1893-1924) is in the middle, and the Pegasus-less Magnolia Petroleum Building (built in 1922 and still standing) towers above both of them.
I don’t think I’ve seen the Oriental from this angle. And I’ve never noticed all those windows in the Magnolia Building that look directly across into other windows. (That must be … strange.) And since I recently posted photos of this same block of S. Akard, I immediately recognized the short building with the odd-shaped cut-out/crest-like decoration in it opposite the Oriental.
Here’s the same view a few years earlier — about 1913, before the Magnolia was built:
I love these photos. And how nice that two of these landmark buildings are still alive and kicking!
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Sources & Notes
Top photo appeared in the program for the 1977 Texas State Historical Association Annual Meeting of 1977 (held, appropriately enough, in the Baker Hotel, which was built on the corner previously occupied by the Oriental); I found it on the Portal to Texas History site, here. (Dear printers of things like this: please never EVER use brown ink to print photographs. If anyone knows of a cleaner, sharper copy of this great photo, please let me know!)
Second photo is from the Texas/Dallas History Division, Dallas Public Library; I found it posted on the D Magazine site, accompanying the article “How Haunted Is the Adolphus Hotel?” here.
Photos larger when clicked.
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Copyright © 2016 Paula Bosse. All Rights Reserved.
Flashback : Dallas 
What is the building just north of the Magnolia and south of the Kirby?
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I think it was the American Exchange Bank Building, which was built in 1922 and located in the 1400 block of Main.
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Perhaps the photo was taken from the original Cotton Exchange Building at Wood and Akard. It’s described as being seven stories tall, which ought to permit the vantage point suggested by this image.
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Sounds like that might have been it. Thanks, Bob!
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And now were so lucky to be left with such interesting and beautiful architectural buildings as the AT&T in place fo the Oriental / Baker Hotels.
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Yeah. Hardly seems fair.
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[…] See a fantastic photo of these buildings from around the same time in the Flashback Dallas post “The Adolphus, The Oriental, The Magnolia.” […]
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[…] In Dallas’ early days, Commerce Street was once considered so far off the beaten path that major businesses did not build there. By 1925, though, the intersection of Commerce and Akard streets boasted three Dallas showplaces: the Adolphus Hotel (still standing), the Magnolia Building (still standing), and the Baker Hotel (not still standing). (Before that, it was the Adolphus, the Magnolia, and Busch’s other hotel, the swanky Oriental.) […]
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Paula — Perhaps you’ve written about this. When Oriental was demo’d and Baker built, the city repositioned Akard south of Commerce. T’s into the Adolphus in these old photos but if you were driving southbound on Akard when the Baker was there, the intersection jogged slightly left as you crossed Commerce, not right. Sanborn maps confirm? Walked Commerce in a rectangle many times at Texas-OU weekend; we crossed at the Magnolia and headed back east on the sidewalk under the Baker. I was doing research on state historic tax credit projects in downtown Dallas when I ran across your lead photo in this post. Vaughn Aldredge
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