August 20, 1945
by Paula Bosse
Aug. 20, 1945
by Paula Bosse
Back in 2014 when I started this blog, this is one of the first photos I posted. It is one of those Dallas photos that can actually be described as “iconic”: a cowboy on horseback watches over a herd of cattle grazing just beyond a vibrant mid-century skyline — old Texas meets new Texas. The photo is by Dallas photographer William Langley, and, according to the Library of Congress, it was taken on August 20, 1945. I am posting it again today, August 20, 2020 — 75 years to the day it was taken.
So what was happening 75 years ago today? Here are a few stories from the newspaper.
Gen. Douglas MacArthur was heading to Japan (Hiroshima and Nagasaki had been bombed within the past two weeks, effectively ending the war).
Wartime restrictions on the use of natural gas were lifted by the War Production Board.
Hollywood stars Dick Powell and June Allyson had gotten hitched.
LBJ was being touted as a possible candidate for Texas governor.
The average cost of a meal for a family of four before the war was $2.27 (or about $40 in today’s money); now, after the war, it had risen to $3.70 (about $50). Fruit preserves were almost impossible to find.
Dallasites were chomping at the bit to bid farewell to the war-ordered Daylight Savings Time and return to Standard Time — they wanted go to bed when it was dark outside.
Annexation had meant that Dallas had increased in size over the past year from 51 square miles to 87 square miles.
Several Dallasites saw a “very large and very luminous” meteor.
Sgt. Jesse Curry, 31, of the Dallas Police Department, had been awarded a fellowship for an 18-week course in traffic administration at Northwestern University Traffic Institute in Chicago.
It was announced that improved trash pickup was on the horizon, as soon as new trucks became available.
War workers were being released from their war-work obligations, and the city’s businesses were beginning to hire, which was good news, except for many Dallas women who were still working but who were met with the announced closure of many “playschools” which were operated around the city on a 12-hour cycle to accommodate shift workers.
The Texas League announced they would resume minor league play in the spring.
Hockaday would increase its staff from 83 members to 100 for the upcoming school year.
“The Three Musketeers” was opening at the Starlight Operetta in Fair Park. The State Fair of Texas would not resume until 1946.
“Thrill of a Romance” — with Van Jones and Esther Williams — was at the Majestic.
“Pillow to Post” — with Ida Lupino and Sydney Greenstreet — was at the Palace.
“The Story of G.I. Joe” — with Burgess Meredith and Robert Mitchum — was at the Tower.
“Asi Se Quiere en Jalisco” — with Jorge Negrete — was at the Panamericano.
Interstate Theaters declined to respond to the rumor that a soon-to-be-built theater in Galveston was to be equipped to show television broadcasts.
High temperature on the Monday Bill Langley took that photo was 92 degrees.
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Sources & Notes
Photo by William Langley — titled “Skyline, Dallas, Texas” — is from the collection of the Library of Congress. Langley appears to have been positioned somewhere around the present-day Stemmons Corridor.
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Copyright © 2020 Paula Bosse. All Rights Reserved.
Flashback : Dallas 
This is one of my favorite photos!
Looking at the photo you can see utility poles on a road behind the cows and the Medical Arts Building behind the southern power plant stack.
Looking at a 1949 aerial you can see two places that look like there is a road with utility poles in what would become the Stemmons Corridor. Drawing a line through the Medical Arts Building and through the power plant gives a reference line and then drawing additional reference lines through the Mercantile and Magnolia Buildings gives two possible areas the photo could have been taken from.
If the photo were taken from the area closest to the power plant the Mercantile would be behind the southern part of the power plant but it is farther right in the photo so I think the photo was taken from the area farther away from the plant. Here is the 1949 aerial with the reference lines:
Based on the following 1955 map I think the photo was taken between present day Dragon and Market Center a little south of Oak Lawn:
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Cool diagram! Langley was my great uncle. We were always told that he took that photo, candidly, out of the back door of his studio on Slocum Street. There could be a couple of problems with that description though. Whereas I’ve found a record of him having a studio at 1400 Slocum in 1961, I don’t think the building was built until possibly 1955 (at least the one that is there now). Looking at your 1949 aerial, I don’t see anything that looks like a photography studio on Slocum Street. I could imagine two possibilities, 1) the photo was taken at a later date (I’m not able to date the skyline myself) or, 2) he did actually take the photo on Slocum Street in 1945 but his memories were mixed up with his studio having been there at a later date. If nothing else, it definitely looks like he might have parked on Slocum to take the photo. My cousin (Bill’s son) has another shot taken on the same day with a slightly wider view but I don’t think it offers any more clues. I have found records of him having a studio at 2906 Maple between 1945 and at least 1951. And, coincidentally or not, your reference lines are very near the present day location of 1400 Slocum. Can you tell if the skyline is consistent with 1945 or if it could possibly be post-1955? I would think there might be recognizable changes in that 10 year span.
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It is definitely before 1955. In 1955 you would have seen the Republic National Bank Building and the KRLD antenna tower. Reference these two aerials taken from spots about a half mile southeast of the 1945 photo. The first is from 1947 and the second is from 1953:
https://i.imgur.com/5bW5Pfy.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/SEV3YsA.jpg
Based on this 1952 aerial that part of Slocum street wasn’t even there in 1952:
https://www.historicaerials.com/location/32.79152716286774/-96.81776493787767/1952/18
This is the approximate location of 1400 Slocum on the 1949 aerial:
https://i.imgur.com/YyMWvCd.png
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Wow, that answers a lot of questions. It seems that the story of him taking the photo out the back door of his studio couldn’t be true because there doesn’t seem to be anything there in 1945. Plus, I know that he had the studio on Maple then. Eventually he did have a studio at 1400 Slocum which amazingly is right in line with your diagram. I wonder if it could have been that at some time he told someone something along the lines of (referring to the cowboy photo and the Slocum studio) “I could have taken that photo out the back door of my studio”. I guess we’ll never know but the location of the future studio does seem to line up with the shot. Also, the land on the 1947 aerial looks much more cut up than it appears in the photograph. Could be that it changed a lot in two years or maybe just the angle of the camera but, if you were to guess, where would you place the cattle on the 1947 aerial? Also, I have always assumed that the cattle were being driven to the Neuhoff meat packing plant. What do you think?
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The 1947 and 1953 aerials were taken close to the power plant so if I am correct about the location of the 1945 photo then the location of the cattle is not shown on those photos.
I would think that the meat packing plant received its stock via the railroad but meat rationing was still in effect in August 1945 so maybe they were getting stock from any available source.
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I never noticed this before but, looking at your maps and aerials, there wasn’t a road going north/south where I35 is now. The only road going N/S that could be in this photo is Industrial Blvd. which means that the photo had to have been made west of Industrial. In both shots I have from the day, there are cars going down a road behind the cattle. This has to be Industrial Blvd. You can see the more distant train tracks nearer where the freeway is now. There might be a stop sign to the right of the one photo where you can see the two cars stopped. I can’t figure out where this would be but there seems to be limited possibilities. Maybe the intersection with Irving Blvd. or Continental?
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I think the road behind the cattle is Dragon.
I have added street names to the 1949 aerial. Maybe this will clear up where I think the photo was taken:
I think the intersection you are referring to may be where the railroad crosses Dragon or possibly the intersection of Cole and Dragon.
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Thanks for spending so much time on this. I’ve wondered for a long time exactly where this photo was taken but the only real effort I made to find out was to drive over there and for obvious reasons I gave up pretty quick. I can see that Dragon could be a possibility for the road in the photo but the space Between Dragon and the railroad seems too small. It’s hard to imagine that a cowboy would have driven such a large herd of cattle (at least 100 as I count) into such an area. Anything is possible though I guess. From the aerial it does seem like there’s more traffic on Dragon than I would have thought. However, I still think it could be Oak Lawn or Industrial just because there would be more grazing area in front of the road. Whatever the case, they all converge in the same general area. I always heard that these photos were candid, and not staged, but I think it’s now a certainty that he didn’t walk out the back door of his studio and happen upon a cattle drive and take the photo. That leaves two possibilities, 1) it was staged, or 2) he was driving by and happened upon a fading way of life and a cooperative cowboy. Wonder if there were any ranches in that area in 1945 and, if so, I wonder if the cowboy could be identified? He’s a little more visible in the second photo. It would be interesting to know the history of cattle being driven/grazed in that area. That seems like too many cows to have been trucked in for a staged photo (or if they had been trucked into Neuhoff they wouldn’t be way over there). They must have come from close by since there’s only one cowboy. If they were on their way to Neuhoff, looking at the aerial map it does look like they might have had a pen on the west side of the tracks in the distance of the photo with a way through. Hard to tell though.
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I made a bad assumption when using the 1949 aerial. I assumed that the area the photograph was taken in should be about the same as it was in 1945 but I forgot how rapidly that area was changing.
I found a 1945 aerial at SMU and it looks like Dragon Street and the railroad tracks were not even built yet. I also checked the Dallas Morning News archives and the earliest mention of Dragon is 1946. So here is a revised estimate on the location of the photo shown on a section of that 1945 aerial:
So the traffic may have been on Industrial and the stop may have been at Industrial and Irving. Since I don’t see evidence of Oak Lawn in the photo it may have been taken from a little closer to downtown at Oak Lawn.
If you look at the full 1949 aerial that the marked up images were cropped from, you can see there are still what look like farm/ranches in the Trinity River bottoms even after 1945:
So I doubt the photo was staged.
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Wow! That full 1949 aerial is amazing. I’m guessing that stadium is PC Cobb which means the freeway would soon run west of it which is hard to believe looking at this photo. Could it be that triangle created by Oak Lawn, Industrial, and Turtle Creek? The reason I mention that is that it doesn’t look fenced and a lot of the other is. I definitely don’t see a fence between the cows and the cars. If you send me your email address I’ll send you the second photo and maybe you’ll spot a clue that I’m missing. I think it has more information in it.
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That is Cobb.
I think it is possible that it could have been in that Oak Lawn, Industrial and Turtle Creek triangle. The line through the power plant to the Medical Arts building is just my best guess and could be off a little.
You could upload the photo to imgur.com and then post the link here. You could also try posting it to the couple of Dallas history related facebook groups that Paula has mentioned: https://www.facebook.com/groups/dallashistory/ and https://www.facebook.com/groups/514968805328052/ Sometimes the more eyes on something the better the chances of finding an answer.
But if you are trying to limit its public exposure you can email it to Robert-Not-Bob@protonmail.com.
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They are selling reprints of this photo on eBay. Curious if there is some type of copyright violation?
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What do I do if i have the original Cowboy and Skyline photograph?
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Andrea- If you have an original copy of the photograph I would love to hear whatever you might know about it. Thanks!
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