Main Street’s Varied Modes of Transport — ca. 1909
by Paula Bosse
Powered by oats, electricity, and gasoline… (click for larger image)
by Paula Bosse
Here’s Main Street, looking east, from about Field. This is another of those odd photos showing streets shared by horse-drawn buggies and automobiles. And an electric streetcar. The days of those horses clip-clopping down Main Street were limited. (And I’m sure the horses were much-relieved.)
This photo was taken sometime between 1909, when the Praetorian Building opened (it’s the tall white building in the background, with the Wilson Building behind it at the other end of the block), and 1911, when the street numbers changed (you can see the address of “303” next to the words “Santa Fe” — the Gulf, Colorado & Santa Fe Railway offices were at 303 Main Street in the 1909 city directory).
Also seen in this photo are the tall Scollard Building (the one with the advertising painted on its side) and, one building away, the Imperial Hotel.
See what it looks like now, here.
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Photo from a pamphlet for the Texas State Historical Association’s annual meeting in Dallas in 1977, found on the Portal to Texas History, here. Sadly, the photo was printed in sepia ink, which, argh. As always, if you know of a sharper image, please let me know!
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Copyright © 2017 Paula Bosse. All Rights Reserved.
Flashback : Dallas 
Looks like this photo was used on a postcard: http://i.imgur.com/QXsguBn.jpg I am not sure that they are the photographer but C. Weichsel Co. is named on the postcard. They occupied 369-371 Main just east of the Praetorian. That building was demolished in 2014: http://www.dallasnews.com/news/dallas-city-hall/2014/05/16/as-part-of-the-joules-expansion-a-129-year-old-building-along-main-street-will-be-demolished
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Yep. Because of all the recent demolition, I think a lot of us know a surprising amount of trivia about that block!
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