Flashback : Dallas

Snazzy motor car parked in front of 5109 Swiss Avenue

by Paula Bosse

This arresting photo shows a woman in the driver’s seat of what appears to be a “ladies'” electric car (possibly a Detroit Electric, although I can find no models that look like this one…), parked in front of an unusual-looking Swiss Avenue home, complete with a second-story sleeping porch and virtually no landscaping. The photo — taken by notable Dallas photographer Charles Erwin Arnold — is currently offered on eBay.

Here’s a view of the entrance to the house which, as noted on the reverse, is at 5109 Swiss Avenue.

The house was built in 1911/12 and was designed by Lang & Witchell (architects to the rich and richer), who were busy drawing up house plans for people up and down Swiss (they were so prolific that it seems like most of the buildings built in Dallas at the time came from their drafting tables!). This house was commissioned by James P. Griffin (president of the Texas Electric Railway Co.) and his new wife, May Burford Griffin (daughter of Dallas pioneer Judge Nat Burford).

Dallas Morning News, Sept. 13, 1911

The house is still standing but has been remodeled, as is mentioned in various real estate ads over the years. (At one point, there was a reference to a kitchen with marble floors, which… I’m not sure I’ve ever seen marble floors in a kitchen. I don’t know if they were original to the house — or are still there — but, whatever the case, that is très élégant.)

The house can be seen in recent years in an Ebby Halliday listing from 1982, in an undated photo on Douglas Newby’s Architecturally Significant Homes website, and on the Swiss Avenue Historic District website. The image below is a Google Street View from Feb. 2023.

I assume that the woman in the car is Mrs. Griffin, seen below in later years. In the photo, she would have been about 32.

I love that car. And I love that house, which looked very modern 112 years ago!

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Sources & Notes

The circa-1913 photos are from a current listing on eBay. I posted the top photo on my Patreon page less than a week ago, and reader Tom R. identified the house. I think the second photo has been added in the past couple of days, because I’m pretty sure it wasn’t there when I wrote that post! Someone might have contacted the seller to ask if it might be a house on Swiss Avenue, and they realized they had another photo of the house, which they added to the listing. …And increased the price significantly! These are such cool photos. If I were the current owners of this Swiss Ave. house, I would be all over this!

Thanks to Tom and William for their helpful comments on my original Patreon post (“Super-Cool Car, Super-Cool House”).

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