Flashback : Dallas

In retirement…

by Paula Bosse

I came across these photos several years ago, but I don’t really know anything about them. They show a decommissioned Oak Lawn streetcar (car #755), which was manufactured in the 1920s for the Dallas Railway & Terminal Co. The photos, which look to be from the 1950s, show the car remodeled into a home (or, as the text below suggests, a sort of weekend “lake house”). When I clipped these photos (they were on some obscure railroad forum I stumbled onto), the only info was that someone had placed a for-sale ad for this on Craigslist in 2009. Below is the seller’s ad:

Antique 1920s or 1930s Dallas interurban trolley car. Trolley was retired from service in the 50s. Has a porch built on the back. Has a separate room with bath. There’s a kitchen and a 1930s refrigerator that works very well. On about a half acre wooded lot at Lake Whitney. Not far from boat ramp. Walking distance to water. Used to be on the “Oak Lawn” run in Dallas. Unusual, neat place to spend summers at the lake. Call Carol or Ron (214) xxx-xxxx. No owner financing.

I don’t know where the photos came from (they look like photos that would have accompanied a story in a magazine like Life), but they are great.

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I don’t think that’s an interurban car, but it’s really long for a streetcar. (How would it turn corners?) Has it been extended? Below is a typical Oak Lawn streetcar:

This photo was actually in the video below (“Dallas Oak Lawn Streetcar Line No. 8”). It’s a pretty uneventful video — a man in a car retraces the Oak Lawn streetcar route. My mother grew up in Oak Lawn and talks about riding the streetcar to and from downtown, but I had no idea how far into Oak Lawn it traveled. 

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While looking to see if I could find anything more about the renovated Dallas streetcar, I came across a story which showed something similar (but more elegant) in this article about a renovated interurban car in New Jersey: “One-of-a-Kind Point Pleasant Home Built Around Century-Old Trolley Car.”

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An ad from 1930, not long after the Oak Lawn car was manufactured:

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If you know more about Oak Lawn car #755 — where it’s been, where it is now — please comment below!

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Sources & Notes

First four photos are from a Dallas Craigslist ad placed in or before 2009 — I believe the photos were posted with the ad. The ad was then reposted on a railroad forum.

Ad from the April 1930 issue of Dallas magazine.

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