Flashback : Dallas

And the winner is…

by Paula Bosse

Another year is coming to an end. Time for a list! I’ve looked back through this year’s posts and have picked my favorite images — photos, postcards, artwork, etc. They’re in no order, except for the one at the top, which is my tip-top fave of ’23. To see the posts these images originally appeared in, click the titles; image sources will be at the end of each post, under “Sources & Notes.” (All images are larger when clicked.)

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I love the postcard above. LOVE it. The night scene, which shows a “luminous fountain” in Fair Park, is from about 1912. It appeared in the post “Fair Park at Night — ca. 1912.”

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Below, a close runner-up is this fantastic color photo of the Elm-Ervay-Live Oak intersection, made exponentially better because of the presence of the completely unexpected billboard for the Colony Club, featuring stripper Chris Colt, “the girl with the 45s.” I try to avoid posting photos with watermarks — and this one has a big one! — but this is just such a great period snapshot of staid-and-conservative, edgy-and-naughty Dallas. From the post “Colony Club Billboard in Beautiful Kodachrome — Early 1960s.” (Somebody bought this color slide on eBay right after I posted this — I hope it was a Flashback Dallas reader!)

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One of the truly beautiful, instantly recognizable buildings in Dallas is the Mercantile. This Squire Haskins photo (which I’ve cropped) (sorry, Squire…) is pretty stunning. From the post “The Mercantile Bank Building — 1951.”

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Another landmark, the Old Red Courthouse, is seen in this photo when it was still the “New” Red Courthouse. This is very dreamlike. From the post “Courthouse in the Mist/Smoke/Murk — 1901.”

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Moving to Lower Greenville, this is the best aerial photo I’ve found showing the old Hockaday campus at Belmont and Greenville. Squire Haskins, the photographer, should be more well-known than he is. (There are more of his photos in this list than I realized! Thank you, UTA, for the incredible collection of his photos!) This was from the catch-all post “A Few Photo Additions to Past Posts — #21.”

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While we’re on Squire Haskins’ aerials, I was pretty excited to stumble across this early-1960s view of North Dallas around the St. Mark’s campus (it shows the wide-open land west of Preston Road at Royal Lane). From the post “St. Mark’s From the Air.”

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This early photo of Dallas Hall at SMU is great. From the post “Dallas Hall, The Early Days.”

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I saw this photo in a WFAA/WBAP/KGKO booklet 10 or 15 years, and I’ve loved it ever since. Every time I see it, it makes me smile. I think I love it even more now than the first time I saw it. I finally used it in a post this year, in “Uncle Scooter Reads the Funnies: 1940-41.”

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Okay. How did anyone think a stagecoach ride at Six Flags was a good idea? (Not that I wouldn’t have wanted to ride it myself….) From the post “The Stagecoach Ride at Six Flags: 1961-1967” (you can probably guess the reason it was discontinued).

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Who doesn’t love a good carnival sideshow banner? Perhaps the apex of advertising. 73 years later, I kinda want to see what was inside that State Fair midway tent. From the post “The ‘Shadow’ Flashback.”

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This one isn’t a great photograph, per se, but it shows something I’ve never seen: the Jefferson Theater (1517 Elm, between Akard & Stone) with this odd (temporary?) facade. From the post “A Few Photo Additions to Past Posts — #19.”

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Feast your eyes on “Pig Stand No. 2, Oak Cliff” — 1301 N. Zang, taken about 1928. This might be the first people-in-a-rumble-seat photo I’ve ever posted!

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I can’t tell you exactly why I love this photo of a cafe at McKinney & Lamar so much. But I do. From the post “Crescent Cafe: Warehouse District — 1944-1952.”

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One of my favorite photos of a restaurant interior is this one: the Copper Cow, at 1519 Commerce, from about 1960. Wow. From the post “The ‘Other’ Flashback Dallas….”

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This photo of the training camp at Love Field is great — and so are the others in the post “Love Field Aviation Camp, World War I.”

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I could look at old photos of downtown Dallas all day long. And I have. This one, by Frank Rogers (another ace local photographer that every self-respecting student of Dallas history should know!) shows a lively street scene in the “1500 Block of Elm — 1920s” (click the link to see a second photo by Rogers which shows the next part of the block).

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This photo of the Majestic Theatre under construction is wonderful. From the post “Flashback Dallas Side Hustle.”

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I haven’t posted a lot of advertisements this year, which is a shame, because I love ads, especially those that feature historic photos you might not find anyplace else. Like this one. It is an ad for a paving material company, but it features a photo I’ve never seen showing St. Mary’s College in East Dallas at Garrett & Ross. From the ad-packed post “Ads, Ads, Ads, Ads, and a Few More Ads — 1916.”

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I love finding a photo of a somewhat non-descript building and diving in to learn about its history. It’s even better when you find that the really-old-for-Dallas building is still standing. Like this one, which is made even more interesting because it’s in Exposition Park, an area I’m fascinated with, partly because it has been overshadowed by its sexier neighbors, Deep Ellum and Fair Park. So… great photo. Check the post “The Bullen Store, Exposition Avenue — 1896-1936” to see what this building looks like now (I haven’t been to Expo Park recently — I hope it’s still there!).

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And, finally, last but not least, art! I have posted so little art this year. I need to rectify that in 2024. I suppose art is my real passion, and Dallas has produced some wonderful artists. One of the best-known Dallas artists is Jerry Bywaters. I found this undated Bywaters watercolor while I was looking for something unrelated. It shows the old Farmers Branch depot. I love this. From “Jerry Bywaters: A Quick Trip to Farmers Branch.”

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And there they are, my top 20 favorite images of 2023!

Coming soon: my personal favorite posts and the most popular posts of the year. Check back!

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Sources & Notes

See all three 2023 Year-End “best of” lists (as they’re posted) here.

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

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Copyright © 2023 Paula Bosse. All Rights Reserved.