The Bright Lights of Big D — 1951
by Paula Bosse
…Forget all your worries, forget all your cares…
by Paula Bosse
This is the downtown Dallas I’ve always wished I had seen.
Check out a clipping from the 1953 city directory for a list of the businesses in this immediate block, from about Akard to Ervay, here.
Then click over to the 2015 post “Dazzling Neon, Theater Row — 1929” to see how drastically Elm Street — and Movie Row — changed in just 22 years.
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Sources & Notes
Photo by Denny Hayes, Hayes Collection, Dallas History and Archives, Dallas Public Library; Call Number PA76-1-576-2.
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Copyright © 2024 Paula Bosse. All Rights Reserved.
Flashback : Dallas 
I see at least 3 1950 license plates and only one 1951 license plate. You were supposed to use last year’s plate until March 1 and purchase the current year’s plate by April 1 so this photo was probably taken in March.
The shot appears to have been taken from an elevated position so I wonder if it was taken from the back of a street car?
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There are fewer and fewer of us who will remember how every car owner in Texas had to get new plates all at the same time (April 1st). And we got nice new METAL plates every year.
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That was right after my parents were married at Oak Cliff Methodist. What a time to be alive! Beautiful shot. I wonder if Harris & Co is the same Harris as Sanger Harris 🤔
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Yes, the two department stores — A. Harris and Sanger Bros. — merged.
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This is what my mother would have seen when she came to Dallas in ’47. Consider how exciting that was for a (very) young woman from a Kansas farm who’d spent her teenage years in tiny towns in dusty eastern Colorado.
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Hi Paula – I found this video a while back, and there is a clip in the center of it – that shows some fairly nice (for the era) footage of neon signs in Downtown Dallas c 1949.
The video is about the move of Chance Vought from Stratford Connecticut in Dallas. My dad was part of that move… but he’s not in the film
There are also some nice shots of the Belmont Hotel… and some cool shots of a steam locomotive pulling trains carrying material to the new factory in Dallas.. but the video is like 30 minutes long, so hard to find.
I believe this link will just show the clip of interest showing the Downtown lights. https://texasarchive.org/2011_03595?b=1114&e=1205
Bill Parrish
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Can’t believe I misspelled my name in the “login”… it’s Parrish.
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[…] by Denny Hayes is this spectacularly BRIGHT photo of Elm Street, from “The Bright Lights of Big D — 1951.” (Source: Hayes Collection, Dallas History and Archives, Dallas Public […]
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