Dallas: “Outstanding Educational Center” — ca. 1943
by Paula Bosse
Five education hotspots…
by Paula Bosse
From So This Is Dallas, a publication meant to lure new residents to the city by touting key aspects of what makes it worth your while to pack your bags and relocate NOW. This is the page that focused on education.
Dallas… Outstanding Educational Center
Early in its history, Dallas set a high standard for its schools, and so well has it maintained those standards, that it stands high among cities of the nation in the educational advantages it offers to the children of its people and to those of the surrounding states.
From kindergartens for tiny tots to great universities and colleges for those seeking the higher degrees of learning, Dallas can furnish any specialized or general training that the young citizen may require.
There are 62 elementary schools, 8 senior high schools, and 4 junior high schools in the public school system of Dallas and the surrounding residential cities. Several new junior high schools are planned, and new elementary schools are organized as rapidly as they are needed.
The public schools also offer evening classes for the training of adults, and vocational training for adults or those of school age who prefer the specialized fields.
In the field of higher learning, there is Southern Methodist University, the medical and dental schools of Baylor University, Miss Hockaday’s School for Girls, and the Terrill School for Boys. Several well-rated business schools offer training in business administration, and there are dozens of recognized schools of music, art, the dance, drama, trades, and professions. Only a few miles to the west, at Arlington, is the state’s great school, the North Texas Agricultural College.
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North Dallas High School:
Southern Methodist University:
Woodrow Wilson High School:
The Terrill School for Boys:
Miss Hockaday’s School for Girls:
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Why not post lists of schools from the 1943 Dallas directory? First, Dallas Public Schools (White):
Dallas Public Schools (Black):
Dallas Private Schools:
Dallas Schools, Colleges, Academies, and Odd Stuff:
And a lot of business schools….
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Sources & Notes
Photos and text from So This Is Dallas, published around 1943 by The Welcome Wagon, with photos by Parker-Griffith; courtesy of the Lone Star Library Annex Facebook page.
See other Flashback Dallas posts using bits from this booster publication (circa 1943 and 1946) here.
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Copyright © 2023 Paula Bosse. All Rights Reserved.
Flashback : Dallas 
Texas Country Day School became St. Marks several years later…
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It is amazing how schools change over the years. One of the grade schools I attended was John Henry Brown. Now it is Billy Dade Middle School. Another one was Robert E. Lee. Now it is Geneva Heights Grade school and it is being torn down and replaced with a modern facility this year. At least J.L. Long Jr. High is still standing. However, my high school, Crozier Tech in downtown was bought out and remodeled into a well-designed office building. At least they left the outside design of the front of the oldest high school in Dallas. I’m so glad you’re protecting the history of these lost items in our past. Sometimes it makes you feel like your past is being erased.
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Wonderful post, Paula. I have a couple of comments about the pictures, however. The location of the Terrill School for Boys shown in the photo is the campus of the former St. Mary’s College, now St. Matthew’s Episcopal Cathedral. I was always told that the Terrill School became St. Mark’s. Ted Dealey has an
“amusing” description of life as a student of Dr. Terrill in his “Diaper Days of Dallas”.
The other photo mystery in that article has to do with Hockaday School. In the late 50’s I was in a Bluebird group at Walnut Hill School with several Hockadaisies and I remember picking them up at Hockaday several times. At that time the school was still located at Cape. Walter Caruth’s old farmhouse “Bosque Bonita” at the corner of Greenville and Belmont. It relocated to the campus on Forest Ln. several years later. I can only assume that the photo in the article was taken somewhere else and included in their yearbook. Perhaps SMU?
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Thanks, Victoria.
The Terrill School moved from their original location to the former St. Mary’s location about 1930. And then (from the chronology on the St. Mark’s website: “in 1946, Terrill School became The Cathedral School, which in turn merged in 1950 with Texas Country Day School, founded in 1933, to form St. Mark’s School of Texas.”
The photo of Hockaday girls is from the Greenville Avenue location (they moved to North Dallas at the end of 1961). If you’re thinking the brick building doesn’t look right, there were several buildings on the campus in addition to Bosque Bonita. I wrote about that campus here: https://flashbackdallas.com/2016/06/19/belmont-and-greenville/
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Hi Paula –
One of those many colleges, the Shamburger Select Business College, still stands on Columbia between Munger and Collett. The dormitory/classroom building is the “Columbia Inn” and Shamburger’s residence is the house behind it. (Here’s a vintage postcard currently on eBay: https://www.ebay.com/itm/303132632185). It was a clerical/secretarial school teaching shorthand, etc., that operated from 1915-1948.
He left his papers to the DPL who keeps them as “The Shamburger Collection”. Shamburger’s story and collection contents are listed here: https://dallaslibrary2.org/dallashistory/archives/08412.php
Cheers!
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Thanks, Tom. I’ve meant to write about that place. I admire the building every time I pass it.
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Is there a connection between Shamburger Business College and Shamburger Lumberyard that used to be located on the west side of Greenville just north of the MKT?
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