Flashback : Dallas

Welcome to the Centennial…

by Paula Bosse

Time for the inevitable year-end lists, and this is the first of three. Below are some of my favorite photos, postcards, and artworks posted on Flashback Dallas in 2018. They’re in no particular order, although the one above may be my overall favorite of the year. (All images are larger when clicked.)

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The image above is from — of all things — a linoleum ad. While flipping through an old magazine from 1936, I came across an Armstrong Linoleum Floors ad which featured a color photograph of the reception area in the Administration Building at Fair Park (the old Coliseum, redesigned and redecorated for the Texas Centennial). True color photographs from the Texas Centennial celebration in 1936 are fairly uncommon. I love everything about this photo. See the full ad — as well as a history of the Fair Park Coliseum (now the Women’s Building) — in the post “State Fair Coliseum / Centennial Administration Building / Women’s Museum / Women’s Building.”

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The very first image I posted in 2018 — on New Year’s Day — is the one above, a detail from the 1872 hand-drawn map of the city of Dallas, by 21-year-old Herman Brosius (click it and you’ll see the full, gigantic map). The Dallas Herald wrote that “every house in the corporation limits, together with every street, [is] so accurately drawn that any one acquainted at all with the city can recognize any building.” More on this map can be found in the post “The Bird’s-Eye View of Dallas by Herman Brosius — 1872.” (Image source: Dallas Historical Society, via Wikimedia Commons)

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This energetic illustration from the 1951 Rotunda is one of dozens that appeared in various editions of SMU’s yearbooks by SMU-alum Fred Caropresi. At the time, Caropresi was working as both a commercial artist and a fine artist; he ultimately settled in Pennsylvania and established his own advertising agency. I love his mid-century style, and over 20 examples of his work from the 1951 yearbook can be found in the post “Fred Caropresi’s Mid-Century-Modern Illustrations for SMU’s 1951 Yearbook.” (Source: DeGolyer Library, Southern Methodist University)

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When I first saw this photo of Elm Street’s Palace Theatre, I was so struck by the neon sign that I completely missed the next-door Dairy Queen. A downtown Dairy Queen! More on this exciting discovery can be found in the post “The Palace — 1969.” (Source: Lovita Irby Collection via the Spotlight on North Texas project, UNT Media Library, University of North Texas)

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This great photo from 1935 shows a swollen Trinity River and what things looked like in South Dallas where the levees ended (just south of both the Corinth Street viaduct and the old railroad trestle). Above the magic line: tidy levees, water contained. Below the levees: a whole mess of water, water everywhere. From the post “Forest Avenue-Area Flooding, South Dallas — 1935.” (Source: Lloyd M. Long photo, found on eBay.)

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I love this photo of a Weber’s Root Beer drive-in (which I think was either in Oak Cliff or Lower Greenville). The post this appears in was originally posted in 2017, but I didn’t come across this photo until this year, when I added it to “Weber’s Root Beer Stands: ‘Good Service with a Smile.'” (Source: Traces of Texas Twitter feed)

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The beautiful old Titche’s building is still standing at Main and St. Paul, but it’s no longer quite as elegant. From the post “Titche-Goettinger, Fashions for the Chic Dallas Woman — 1940s.” (Source: Noah Jeppson’s “Unvisited Dallas” website)

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Speaking of department stores (or rather THE department store): Neiman-Marcus (I will forever hold onto that hyphen!). This slightly warped and blurry photo (completely my fault, and explained in the original post) is included in my favorites because of that unexpected fallout-shelter sign plastered onto the Neiman’s building in 1965 — this was surely the most sophisticated location for a bomb shelter in the entire Southwest. I was surprised how much I enjoyed learning about Dallas bomb shelters, and this photo became one of my favorite parts of the resulting post, “‘Dallas Is a Major Target Area!’ — Know Where Your Nearest Fallout Shelter Is.” (Source: DeGolyer Library, SMU — the original photo is of much higher quality than my not-intended-to-be-used quick photo-of-a-photo)

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I absolutely LOVE this crazy building. Never in a million years would I have guessed that this building was in downtown Dallas. But it was, at the southeast corner of Elm and Akard. I traced this building through the years in the post “Elm & Akard, Photographer J. C. Deane, and The Crash at Crush.” (Source: photo by George A. McAfee, DeGolyer Library, SMU)

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That crazy art deco-ish building was just steps away from the view seen above, which was taken at Elm and Stone. I really wish I could walk through that Woolworth’s store. From the post “The Five & Dime at Elm & Stone.” (Source: photo by George McAfee, DeGolyer Library, SMU)

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The Oak Cliff viaduct, at night. When it was brand new in 1912, Dallasites were positively giddy over the fact that their very own “longest concrete bridge in the world” was illuminated with LIGHTS — people were so thrilled by this that they flocked to the viaduct to see the spectacle for themselves, either to marvel at the lights or to shoot the globes out. More can be found in the post “Dallas in ‘The Western Architect,’ 1914: Skyscrapers and Other Sources of Civic Pride.” (Source: “the internet”)

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I love photos of the city at night. Here is the new Stemmons Tower in 1963, standing all alone, with the Dallas skyline in the background — like the wistful child told he’s too little to play with the big kids. “Stemmons Tower, Downtown Skyline — 1963.” (Source: photo by Squire Haskins, Special Collections, University of Texas at Arlington)

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I love Texas Regionalist art from the first half of the 20th century, and this painting of the Triple Underpass by Dallas artist Florence McClung is fantastic. Her original price for the painting was $300; it recently sold at auction for $252,000. More on this at “‘Triple Underpass’ by Florence McClung — 1945.” (Source: David Dike Fine Art)

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And now a whole bunch of State Fair of Texas pictures.

Above, a Kodachrome photo of the midway and Cotton Bowl (and the tops of people’s heads) from 1961 (source: eBay); below, a supremely odd photo of oil tycoon (and often-rumored “richest man in the world”) H. L. Hunt, personally hawking his line of Aloe vera cosmetics at the 1971 SFOT (source: unknown). Both photos are from the post “The State Fair of Texas Over the Decades.”

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I love this screen-capture of a Channel 5 news report about the rainy opening day of the fair in 1967. Watch the filmed report and see other damp screenshots at “A Rainy Opening Day of the State Fair of Texas — 1967.” (Source: KXAS-NBC 5 News Collection, UNT)

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I’m not exactly sure why I like this behind-the-scenes photo so much, but I do. There are lots of things to zoom in on. The post this appeared in is “Prepping for the 1932 State Fair of Texas Midway.” (Source: collection of George Gimarc)

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This postcard features what may well be my favorite photo of Big Tex. Not only does he look like a standing-upright, cowboy-hatted Gulliver surrounded by tuckered-out Lilliputians, but HE’S WEARING A SERAPE! After years and years of looking at Dallas photos and seeing the same ones over and over, this was one I’d never seen. Better yet, it showed me something I didn’t even know about — that Big Tex had once added a little south-of-the-border sartorial flair to his much-beloved outfit. Find out why he was making this bold fashion statement in the post “‘Hola, Folks!’ — Big Tex at the State Fair’s ‘Exposition of the Americas’ — 1965.” (Source: Dallas Heritage Village, via UNT’s Portal to Texas History)

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This is a photo of my late father, Dick Bosse (on the right), taken in 1968 when he was the manager (later the owner) of The Aldredge Book Store. I’d never seen this 50-year-old photo until a very nice person at SMU sent it to me (thank you, very nice person at SMU!). (My father’s co-worker Charlie Drum is on the left.) From the post “The Aldredge Book Store — 1968.” (Source: photo by Andy Hanson, DeGolyer Library, SMU)

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I posted this watercolor depiction of downtown Dallas at Christmastime only a few days ago, but I really love it — so here it is again! From “Merry Christmas from Dallas Artist Bud Biggs.” (Source: Texas Tech University)

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The image below is a self-indulgent bonus, because it’s not a photo, and the quality is pretty poor. It’s a blurry screen-capture from a color home-movie from 1953/1954, showing Matilda looking south from Mockingbird. The house I grew up in was about two blocks from here, and when I saw the video I recognized the location immediately. Streetcars stopped running along Matilda in 1955, but it took forever for the street to be paved — I distinctly remember exposed rails from my childhood in the ’70s. I never saw streetcars in Dallas, but this image makes me very nostalgic for my old neighborhood (my school, Stonewall Jackson Elementary, is just out of frame to the left). The video of the last days of Dallas’ streetcars and a whole lot of information on the Belmont line can be found in the post “Ghost Rails of the Belmont Streetcar Line.” (Source: home-movie shot by Gene Schmidt, YouTube)

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And the last photo is another self-indulgent bonus, because it’s one I took myself — just last week: the Hall of State at Fair Park, from the post “Christmas Along the Esplanade.”

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I look forward to discovering more great photos in 2019!

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Sources & Notes

See all three 2018 “Best of Flashback Dallas” lists here.

See all Flashback Dallas Year-End lists — past and present — here.

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Copyright © 2018 Paula Bosse. All Rights Reserved.