Flashback : Dallas

Highland Park of yesteryear…

by Paula Bosse

Periodically, I add photos or postcards or ads that I’ve recently come across to old Flashback Dallas posts. And I’m doing that again here.

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I’m adding the very pretty postcard of Exall Lake (above) to the 2016 post “Lakeside Drive, Highland Park.” (Source: eBay)

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This early-’40s shot of an MKT train rolling through the Upper Greenville area, with SMU seen in the background and a couple of helpful maps have been added to the 2014 post “Katy Comin’ ‘Round the Bend — 1908.” (Source: DeGolyer Library, SMU — as printed in The Park Cities: A Walker’s Guide and History by Diane Galloway and Kathy Matthews)

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These two great photos by R. C. Hickman have been added to the 2017 post about one of the top Black clubs in Dallas (which had several names…): “1710 Hall: The Rose Room/The Empire Room/The Ascot Room — 1942-1975” These two photos show teen dancers (in 1956) and entertainers (in 1951, pardon the watermark)) at the Empire Room. (Source: R. C. Hickman Photographic Archive, Briscoe Center, University of Texas Libraries)

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I always say I’m not a sports person, but whenever I’ve written about sports, I’ve enjoyed it. But it’s got to have an “angle” — like 2014’s “Simulcasting the World Series in Dallas in the Days Before Radio, Via Telegraph,” which I still think is weird/cool. I’ve added an ad from 1913 featuring the Baseball Play-o-Graph. (Source: Billboard magazine, Mar. 22, 1913)

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Dallas once had tons of swellegant downtown nightclubs, including the Mural Room at the Baker Hotel. Below a 1956 ad geared to the tourist, promoting the Baker, in the age of the cigarette girl. It’s been added to “The Baker Hotel,” from 2017. (Source: This Month in Dallas, Dec. 1956)

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Margo Jones was a force to be reckoned with. This 1956 ad for Theatre ’56 (which continued after her untimely death in 1955) has been added to 2022’s “New Wheels for Margo Jones — 1955.” (Source: This Week in Dallas, Dec. 1956)

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My father was a big fan of the Old West (and the modern Old West), and he mentioned famed Texas Ranger “Lone Wolf” Gonzaullas frequently. I’ve added this photo of one of his custom pistol grips to the 2020 post “Lone Wolf Gonzaullas: Texas Ranger, Dallas Resident.”

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This photo of Elm Street looking east from about Akard, circa 1894, shows Mayer’s beer garden at the left. It has been added to 2022’s “S. Mayer’s Summer Garden, Est. 1881.” (Source: detail of a photo by Clifton Church, from his book Dallas, Texas Through a Camera, DeGolyer Library, SMU)

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A portrait of Andrew Goodman, a man who was born into slavery, has been added to the 2023 post “Ex-Slaves in Dallas — 1937.” The lithograph is by Merritt Mauzey, a Texas artist who studied art and etching in Dallas. (Source: Smithsonian American Art Museum)

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I love ads that have photos of the businesses in them. …Unless the image quality is pretty dire. Like this one. Which I’m including here anyway. The 1956 ad for the Highland Park Cafeteria shows the interior — which I somehow managed to never see personally. But this photo (which in its original form is quite small and difficult to make larger) isn’t great, but, as things often go, I really wanted to know what that was that looked like a mural. I eventually found another ad (the one below from 1950), which referenced a “Williamsburg mural,” and, after asking about this on the Flashback Dallas Facebook page, a comment led to the screenshot from unknown news footage from 1953. I tried to sharpen the image but didn’t have much luck — except that I could tell that it does, in fact, appear to show a mural of Colonial Williamsburg, above a long planter (where, as the ad below says, an “Easter lily hedge” would have been). I have no idea why that was in the HPC, but I’d love to know. This tiny tidbit of information gleaned from a 68-year-old ad is of very little importance, as these things go — except that it took me so long to figure out! Anyway, these have all been added to last year’s “Highland Park Cafeteria and the Knox Street Business District.” (Sources: ad with photo from This Month in Dallas, Dec. 1956; ad without photo from April 1950; screenshot from unknown news footage, 1953)

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Lastly, a short Channel 8 News clip from Oct. 1973, which has an interview with Carl Anderson, a lifelong monarch butterfly enthusiast, talking about his favorite subject. In the video he is shown walking through Lake Cliff Park (the reporter mistakenly calls it Tenison Park). In the background you can see the late, lamented Polar Bear Ice Cream “igloo” on Zang Blvd. I am adding the video to one of my all-time favorite posts, “University Park’s Monarch Butterfly Wrangler.” I always think of Carl and his love of butterflies when monarchs pass through Dallas. (Source: WFAA-Channel 8 News clip, WFAA Collection, G. William Jones Film and Video Collection, Hamon Arts Library, SMU)

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Until next time!

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Copyright © 2024 Paula Bosse. All Rights Reserved.