Flashback : Dallas

Cadets from Camp Dick march down Elm… (click for larger image)

by Paula Bosse

Today is Veteran’s Day, a national day of observance which originally began as Armistice Day in 1919 to mark the end of hostilities in World War I. I was thinking of posting something non-WWI-related, but I stumbled across this wonderful photo showing a WWI-era parade down Elm Street and couldn’t pass up the opportunity to share it. The parade was comprised almost entirely of children who had contributed to the war effort through the Junior Red Cross. The parade was described as “the first parade of children war workers ever held in Dallas.” The number of children (said to represent every school in Dallas) was estimated at up to 8,000 marchers, from kindergarteners to high school seniors.

The parade — which took place on February 22, 1918 — also featured 1,000 or so men based at Camp John Dick, the Air Service training camp at Fair Park. Seeing this parade must have been quite a novelty for Dallasites, as cadets had begun to arrive at Camp Dick only 16 days previously (airmen had been stationed at Love Field a little longer, but only by a couple of months).

Below, I’ve taken the photo from the top and broken it into two halves and then magnified them. The parade was heading west on Elm Street and can be seen here passing Cullum & Boren (1509-1511 Elm), a downtown sporting goods mainstay just a few doors east of Akard. (See a similar view of Elm Street from later that year — in September — from a Dallas Times Herald photo, here.)

And the children.

Dallas Morning News, Feb. 23, 1918

DMN, Feb. 22, 1918

DMN, Feb. 23, 1918, photo and article

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Sources & Notes

Top photo titled “Cadets From Camp Dick in Red Cross Parade, Feb. 22nd, Dallas, Texas” found on the site War Untold, The Collection of Andrew Pouncey, here (click “continue reading” at  bottom of post).

More on the Camp John Dick Aviation Concentration Camp from The Atlantic in the article “What America Looked Like: Bayonet Practice During WWI” (with a great photo), here.

Other Flashback Dallas WWI-related posts here:

• “Tough ‘Ombres on Main Street” — WWI Victory Parade, 1919
• Armistice! — 1918
• Black Troops from Dallas, Off to the Great War
• From Deep in the Heart of Texas, I Give You Love Field — 1919

Armistice Day Wikipedia page is here.

All pictures and clippings are larger when clicked.

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Copyright © 2016 Paula Bosse. All Rights Reserved.