Even Lower Than Lowest Greenville
by Paula Bosse
Where Greenville begins to peter out… (click for larger image)
by Paula Bosse
The photo above shows the lowest part of Greenville Avenue, between Lindell and Bryan Parkway, almost down to where Greenville turns into Munger. It was taken from the parking lot of the Sears store at Ross and Henderson (a shopping center now anchored by a Fiesta grocery store), a place where I spent many hours as a child. I have vivid memories of that store, especially the intense smell of popcorn that hit you like a buttery thunderclap as you entered from the parking lot.
I love that fact that a couple of the buildings seen in this photo (including the Munger Place Church, seen partially at the far right) are still standing.
That cool Fina station seen in the top photo — at the corner of Greenville and Bryan Parkway — has been “modified” somewhat under the thatched hut roof of the Palapas Seafood Bar, but it’s definitely still recognizable. And Fina’s next-door neighbor, the Minute Service Garage, is still alive, too, looking a little less garage-y these days, but still looking pretty good.
Google Street View, Feb. 2017
Then and now:
Keep on keeping on, Greenville Avenue!
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Top photo by Squire Haskins from the Squire Haskins Photography, Inc. collection, University of Texas at Arlington Libraries, Special Collections; more info on the photo is here — click the thumbnail on that page to see a very large image.
More Squire Haskins photographs taken around the perimeter of this Sears store (which opened in September, 1947) are here, here, here, and here.
Click pictures to see larger images.
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Copyright © 2017 Paula Bosse. All Rights Reserved.
Flashback : Dallas 
Brings back a lot of memories Paula, great posting. I too spent a lot of time at that Sears as I was growing up in Vickery Place. I also remember when that Fina Station was a vegetable and fruit stand back in the early 1970’s. Very fresh produce, fresher than the grocery store. Classic photo!
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Thanks, Danny. Make sure to click on the four links at the bottom of the post showing other photos taken at the same time showing other sides of the parking lot.
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The Enco station helps date the photo. According to wikipedia the earliest it would have that brand is 1962. See here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enco_(brand) Checking the city directories it looks like it was probably not an Enco after 1964: https://imgur.com/a/UT6Z8 So the date of the photo is around 1963. Some of the cars might also help date the photo but off the top of my head all I can tell is that they are all late 1950’s and early 1960’s.
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Thanks! It looks like Humble began to use the ENCO brand in the latter half of 1961, per the DMN.
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Yeah, wikipedia is not a real reliable source. It even has contradictions in this case. This wikipedia article on Humble Oil says “service stations in the Lone Star State were not changed to Enco in 1962”: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Humble_Oil
Maybe the DMN says the Enco brand was used in the latter half of 1961 but this May 5, 1961 DMN article says that stations in Texas would retain the Humble oval: http://i.imgur.com/w9GgnId.png
The first year that yields results for a search for Enco in the Dallas directories is 1964. So the changeover may have occurred that year.
There might be a newer vehicle in the photo but I could identify the one in the right center as either a 1961 or 1962 Ford Falcon: https://imgur.com/a/tJmFC
Regardless, I still think 1963 is pretty close to the right year.
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I think the latest car in this photo is the big Ford on the far right; the one obscuring the VW Beetle. I believe it’s a 1962 Galaxie.
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The Mercury almost out of the photo on the left has a white on black license plate, so assuming it is a Texas plate it’s either a 1962 or 1964, as 1963 was black on white.
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I am a little confused by your comment. At the following link it says that 1963 would have been white with black lettering: http://www.thebolthole.com/texas/pass/60.html
The plate on the car on the left looks to be white with black lettering but it is not real clear: https://i.imgur.com/Gb5FUlx.png
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Not Bob: It still looks white on black to me, tho I must admit your enlargement does show something at the left end of the plate I can’t account for, as tho the plate is bent or some object has been placed in front of the plate at that end. Perhaps we should place this matter in the hands of the photo interpreters at NASA. Maybe they’d do it pro bono.
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Looks very clearly to be black lettering on a white ground to me. So, that photo was probably taken in a year with that plate makeup. But the photo of the residential block of Ross Avenue (called “Street” in the photo labels) showing cars parked along it has car plates with white lettering on a black ground, so the photos were probably taken in different years.
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